angishields, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

BRX Pro Tip: The Fastest Way to Find a Needle in a Haystack

January 15, 2025 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: The Fastest Way to Find a Needle in a Haystack

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BRX Pro Tip: The Fastest Way to Find a Needle in a Haystack

Stone Payton: And we are back with Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, I got to confess, as much as I share counsel that it’s very important that you find that ideal client, that you ought to really target your efforts, I mean, candidly, sometimes, it really is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. What can you do to help?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. They say the fastest way to find a needle in a haystack is just to burn down the haystack. And that’s really what you want to do when it comes time to prospect. The best way for you to burn down your haystack when you’re looking for your next sales prospect is to make sure that you’re crystal clear on what that persona of that person looks like, and what offer can you be making that is super persuasive and enticing enough to that right person that makes them want to seek you out?

So, how can you be attracting the right people to the top of your funnel and only them? And that way, you’re only talking to the people that matter most to you. But before you can do any of that, you have to be crystal clear on who they are. You have to know that exact right persona. Then, you can start looking for them. So, spend most of your time identifying that best fit client. Who do you serve best? Who do you enjoy working with the most, and who do you deliver the best results for? Once you can answer those questions, then you can start burning down those haystacks to find them.

The National Black Business Pitch: How Support Networks Fuel the Success of Women-Led Startups

January 14, 2025 by angishields

Women in Motion

The National Black Business Pitch: How Support Networks Fuel the Success of Women-Led Startups

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In this episode of Women in Motion, April Kelly, CEO of the plant-based infant formula startup Sure! and her mentor Deborah Mackins, Senior Manager of Vendor Diversity at Arrow Electronics, join Lee Kantor to discuss April’s journey as a Black female entrepreneur, her second-place win in the National Black Business Pitch competition, and the challenges of securing funding. April shares how her personal experiences as a mother inspired her product, while Deborah emphasizes the importance of mentorship and authentic storytelling in successful pitching. The episode highlights resilience, community support, and the power of personal narratives in entrepreneurship.

April Kelly, the CEO and self-proclaimed startup supermom is the founder of Sure! a groundbreaking plant-based infant formula startup company trailblazing with their allergen-centric approach. Over the past few years, April has assembled a remarkable team of healthcare professionals, regulatory experts, and food scientists, setting new standards in the industry.

Her impressive achievements, including the NC Idea $10K Micro grant and National Black Business Pitch 2nd Place Winner, two-time participation in ECU’s I-Corp Program, and recognition in the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council pitch competition, highlight her potential to revolutionize infant formula and create lasting impact.

As the first black female-owned infant formula startup in the country, her mission focuses on fostering innovation powered by inclusion to create a healthier, more equitable world—a “sure” world.

Connect with April on Instagram.

Deborah Mackins, Senior Manager of Vendor Diversity, joined Arrow Electronics in May of 2023 to launch and lead Arrow’s Vendor Diversity program. She has robust Supplier Diversity, Strategic Sourcing and Procurement experience in several industries including retail, financial services, electrical utilities, aerospace, and automotive.

Deborah is passionate about supplier diversity and has helped companies increase their spending and access to diverse suppliers, manage risk in the supply chain, and provide suppliers with opportunities for growth, mentoring and development.

Deborah currently serves on WBEC-West’s Board of Directors and is a recipient of DiversityPlus Magazine’s 2023 “Top 25 Women in Power Impacting Diversity”.

Follow Arrow on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios, it’s time for Women in Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Women in Motion, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women in Motion, we’re focusing in on the National Black Business Pitch. We have some of the people who participated, along with their mentors. And on today’s episode, we have April Kelly and her mentor, Deborah Mackins. Welcome.

Deborah Mackins: Thank you.

April Kelly: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn about each of you. And we’ll kick it off with April. April, please tell us a little bit about your company.

April Kelly: Absolutely. So, I am the CEO and Startup Supermom of Sure. We are a plant-based infant formula startup company trailblazing with our allergen-centric approach. So, we’ve been on this journey for about five and a half years now, and we are gearing up to launch our very first product out into the market. And so, the funding that we receive from the Pitch competition is actually helping us to do that. And so, it was a great opportunity working with Deborah, and I’ll pass it off to her to introduce herself as well.

Lee Kantor: All right. Deborah, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved in the NBBP?

Deborah Mackins: Sure. And I’d just like to say thank you for the opportunity, Lee. My name is Deborah Mackins. I’m Senior Manager of Vendor Diversity with Arrow Electronics. I have been in this role for about a year and a half now to stand up our program. And I had the pleasure of meeting April Kelly and being her mentor for the National Black Business Pitch. This is my second year being involved with this. And for me personally, it was just a great experience, not only working with April, but just being involved with the National Black Business Pitch overall.

Lee Kantor: Now, April, can you tell us a little bit about this Pitch contest? Why was it important for you to get involved? And what did you kind of get out of going through it, obviously, other than the seed money and the victory or the second-place victory?

April Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. Well, when I first learned about the National Black Business Pitch, I definitely felt a need to participate and at the very least, shoot my shot because as a black female founder, that is one of our biggest pain points and obstacles is the funding piece. And so, that was the first reason. But after learning more about who they are as an organization and what they do and just some of the previous winners, it just seemed like a no brainer. And then, so after winning, coming in place, second place, just shy of about a full point. So, we did a great job, Deborah, working together to get me geared up for that. But the mentorship was really what made the difference for me because not only was it… did it help me to really refine my pitch, but it also boosted my confidence. Just having that additional layer of support, the expertise that Deborah was able to bring about, it really helped me to do things and see things from a different perspective than I had before.

And so even the pitch that we… our winning pitch, we continue to use that same pitch. So, it’s definitely a great wealth of relationship that I feel like I’ve been able to accomplish with Deborah. And then, also just getting better… well, more well versed on how to articulate, you know, our value proposition and what makes us different, what makes us stand out. And, you know, at the very end of the day, why should people support what we have going on with their time, with their connections and with their funding?

Lee Kantor: So, I’m going to ask you each this, and I’d like kind of your angle on it, but what are some of the key factors that make a successful pitch? Let’s start with you, April. Like what do you think was the thing that helped you get the victory that you got or the second-place victory that you got?

April Kelly: It’s definitely the authentic storytelling. That’s what always stands out. It doesn’t matter how well my deck is put together or the different visuals or even the stats, the numbers, it’s all about how it ties back into my own personal story as a founder and the why behind what it is that I’m doing. And that’s always been my secret sauce. And I think if I could speak for most entrepreneurs, it’s everyone’s secret sauce because no one can tell your story like you can. And all of our stories are a little different. And so, that’s what makes it interesting and makes you competitive in the market.

Lee Kantor: And, Deborah, when you’re mentoring folks, how do you help them kind of build this successful pitch? And what are the kind of key elements that you’re looking for when you’re helping them?

Deborah Mackins: Well, for me, it’s very important for me to do the research to understand what the products or services are that the business owner has developed, just to understand that and it’s really very close to having a very powerful elevator pitch. You know, I go to a lot of conferences and meet many business owners, and typically you have about 30 to 45 seconds to capture someone’s attention that they’re going to want to know more about your products or services. So, you know, just discussing that with April to ensure that she had that elevator pitch that was crisp, sharing her personal story. You know, April has a lot of passion on the product that she has developed. It is her own personal story, and it’s very impactful to large communities. So, I think when you tie that elevator pitch, as well as personal stories, passion, I think that can be very impactful. And also, the visuals. I think April mentioned having visuals, so that people can see your logo, see… you know, possibly see your product, something to capture someone’s attention and keep it. And April, she did a fantastic job doing that.

Lee Kantor: Well, April, let’s get kind of into the weeds about your product. Can you share us a little bit about your backstory and maybe a little bit about how this came to be?

April Kelly: I’d be happy to. So, as I mentioned, when I introduced myself, I refer to me as a startup supermom. And so, that would have to mean that I’m a mom and I am of four. And so, with my youngest daughter, when I brought her home from the hospital, I planned to nurse her, and I did for a very short period of time. Unfortunately, I started to struggle with postpartum depression and prematurely had to switch over from nursing full time to completely supplementing with the formula, a very well-known formula on the market. And so, about maybe 24 to 48 hours, somewhere in between that, into us transitioning over into the formula, my daughter ended up having a severe allergic reaction.

And so, at this point, I was really frustrated and holding on to what little sanity I had left. Because we were a vegan family at the time, it was very difficult to find a formula that was plant-based and that had, you know, more natural, recognizable ingredients than the preservatives and the fillers. And so, my husband and I really were kind of at a lost initially and didn’t know, you know, what the next best option would look like. And so, we kind of pulled our family together and we were, you know, just saying, “Hey, just be on the lookout for different formulas or if you come across a safe, healthy recipe that’s been published, please do share it with us.” We, then, begin to just research and spend hours honestly in the grocery stores looking for formula, but not only looking for formula, also educating ourselves on what’s actually in formula, which is a question that I had never asked myself prior to this experience. I kind of just took, you know, what worked for other moms or what the doctor recommended, but I never turned the container to the back to really look at the ingredients that are in formula.

And one thing that I found that was kind of mind blowing was that the number one ingredient in most formulas is corn syrup. And so, we think about, you know, some of the issues that we see our kids having or our infants having when we’re feeding them formula, and one of those is constipation. And corn syrup, actually, causes or attributes to that. And so, we were able to thankfully come across a recipe that had been published and that partnered with the research that we had already been doing gave us enough confidence to go into our own kitchens, and really start to dig into ingredients, and think about, you know, what do we want our baby to eat? Like, how do we want to make sure she’s gotten that complete nutrition?

And so, we started to look at, you know, what… which of these ingredients can be substituted for plant-based, natural, recognizable, store-bought ingredients? And so, once we came up with a recipe that we felt was pretty satisfactory, we went to our pediatrician and kind of told them what our plan was and what we had been doing, and we actually let them screen our recipe, and he ended up giving us the go ahead to feed it to our daughter for the first year of her life. And so, once we made that switch to our recipe, the symptoms that she had started to have as far as the allergic reaction, they started to subside within that first 24 hours. Within 72 hours, she was completely free from all of the symptoms. They had all gone away.

And so, we would continue to monitor her for the first couple of weeks to the next few months, and she started to gain weight. She started to become regular with her bowels and everything was great. And so, I had planned to go back to work. I was actually working in corporate America at the time. And so, I was on my way back in to work. But shortly before that, I decided to hop on to Facebook, and I was going on a mom community at the time, and I started to just… that mom group was really just for moms to come together in a safe space to share some of the more taboo things that we don’t always get the opportunity to discuss in open forum. And so, I talked about my postpartum. I talked about how we came up with this, you know, new recipe for milk for our baby and how she was doing. And while I was doing that, I was making the actual recipe on the live, and I had my daughter wrapped, how they do the baby wearing. I had her wrapped around me and she was asleep.

And so, once I got off that live, I started to get pinged left and right from other viewers that had watched it or that were on during the time that I was or during the live, and they were saying things like, “Hey, I wish I had something like this around when my kids were babies,” or “I could use it now. Is it safe for me to follow your recipe?” and “Thank you so much for sharing your story.” And that, Lee, was my aha moment that led me to believe that “Okay, I thought this was a personal problem, but it sounds like it might be much more of a bigger problem.” And so, from there, we started walking in the dark and trying to put steps in place to figure out if our solution could be commercialized.

Lee Kantor: Now, were you or anybody on your early team food scientists? Like, how did you even like… Or you were just kind of fooling around in the kitchen, just mixing stuff up, and hoping that it tastes good, and it works?

April Kelly: We were literally just parents trying to find a solution for our child. And one thing I like to say is that I truly believe that moms are the world’s best problem solvers, because on a day-in and day-out basis, there’s so many issues that we come about with our little ones, and we have to just throw on the hat and figure it out as we go. However, I will say, after having that success with our pediatrician and being given the green light and then deciding that “Okay, we’re now wanting to see how we can commercialize that,” we very quickly got in contact with the experts because we wanted to make sure that safety was our first and main priority. So, we then partnered with universities like NC State and UNC Chapel Hill and graduate students from their marketing or that were studying marketing and things of that nature, market research, and food scientists, manufacturers and they were able to help us to tweak it just a bit. But I’m proud to say that our recipe is still about 98% the same as it was when we first started. So, we got it almost close to being exactly right.

Lee Kantor: So, at what stage are you at now? Do you have it out in the marketplace?

April Kelly: So, no, we don’t have it out in the marketplace. What we’re doing, we have to do somewhat of a pivot. And because the infant formula industry has such high barriers to entry, and we truly are a startup company building it from the ground up, we noticed that it was going to take a little bit longer to get the infant formula out into the market and to be able to market it as that, as an infant formula. So, we have to continue to do some additional animal studies, human studies and other research before we can get the FDA approval to do that. And so, we pivoted into a toddler beverage, a complete nutrition toddler beverage, very similar to our infant formula recipe that allows parents to safely introduce allergens early and often to de-risk the chances of their child developing allergies later in life. And so, that product is complete and will be on the shelves in the first quarter of next year.

Lee Kantor: Deborah, you must be so proud of April and the progress she’s made.

Deborah Mackins: I am. I mean, it was a total pleasure working with April. Actually, I think I learned a lot just from the experience. I would say yes, I was the mentor but, in some ways, she was the mentor. So that in itself is just remarkable. I’ve never worked with anyone that was a startup owner or business for any type of food or beverage products. So, just learning about that, learning about the product. April also has a marketing background. So, she… and this is very natural for her to, you know, do her due diligence, you know, on the product and, you know, just understanding what customers are looking for, so on and so forth. So, I mean, it was just very, very easy to do. Just a total pleasure.

Lee Kantor: Now, Deborah, do you have any advice for other corporates out there that haven’t gotten involved with the National Black Business Pitch Contest or just any of these other kind of opportunities to mentor? I think that a lot of corporates like yourself, you mentioned you can benefit by learning about these startups and businesses of a smaller size, and that could bring insight to you and your work every day.

Deborah Mackins: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that some corporate members may feel that they don’t have anything to offer to these types of pitches and events, but you do. You know, you work with businesses, whether it’s small or large business every day, you hear some of the things that are going on within your company and others. And so, you have a wealth of knowledge to be able to bring to these entrepreneurs. So why not share it? You’re in these positions, you know, not only to be a benefit to your company, but I think also to entrepreneurs and small businesses. So, I just say just give it a try. And who knows, you may participate year after year, which is something that I’ve been doing for not only with the National Black Business Pitch but with other pitches for some years now. Just give it a try.

Lee Kantor: And would the same thing go towards kind of becoming part of the WBEC-West community? That’d be… I would think that if you’re a woman business owner, that’s kind of a no brainer.

Deborah Mackins: It is. WBEC-West. And actually, I’m on the board of directors for WBEC-West. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with this RPO. Some of the things that WBEC-West does, they certify women business owners. So, basically, if you say that you’re a woman-owned business, they validate that. They also provide opportunities for these businesses to connect with other women businesses to share best practices. WBEC-West also provides opportunities to build relationships with the women business owners and representatives from corporations such as Arrow Electronics, which is the company that I work for. And it’s a great opportunity to build relationships because why people do business with people they know, like and trust. And also, I’d say if you get involved with WBEC-West, get certified, really do get involved. So, that means participating in events, taking advantage of the webinars, perhaps even attending the regional conference. And I should say Dr. Pamela Williamson, who’s the president and CEO of WBEC-West, her and her staff are phenomenal and that’s a bonus as well.

Lee Kantor: So, April, what do you need more of? How can we help you?

April Kelly: Absolutely. As we are gearing up for first quarter and our product debut, we invite anyone who’s listening to check out our website. We are going through a rebrand, so we will no longer be known as The Sure Company. We will be changing our name now to Hello Tavi. And that’s T as in Tom, A, V as in Victor, I. hellotavi.com. Tavi is actually my daughter’s name. And so, just as a nod to her for being our first Sure baby, we are rebranding to fall under her name, and there will be several different micro brands that fall under that. For example, Tavi Babes will be the infant formula. Tavi Tops will be the toddler beverages. And then, as our product portfolio grows, you’ll see the names and the new brand names come out as well.

So, definitely check us out, hellotavi.om. And then, on Instagram follow us at @thetaviway. And we are looking for investors right now. We’re gearing up for our biggest trial run at the end of 2025. And so, every little contribution counts. So, no matter how big or small, we are actually entertaining serious conversations about or with angel investors as well. And so, we would love to have some introductions to investors that may be listening or that you may know of in your network. And then, lastly, introductions to different pediatric or different healthcare professionals in the pediatric and immunology space. We are looking for someone to come on board with us and lead the research project or partner with me in doing so for the human-centered studies that will be happening later on next year.

Lee Kantor: Well, April, congratulations again on being the second-place winner of the $10,000 microgrant from the National Black Business Pitch. And Deborah, thank you so much for your mentoring and all the service you do for WBEC-West and the community. And thank you both for doing the important work that you do. We appreciate both of you.

April Kelly: Thank you. Lee. Thank you for having me.

Deborah Mackins: Great.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on Women in Motion.

Danielle Hendon with 4 Corners CFO

January 14, 2025 by angishields

Houston Business Radio

Danielle Hendon with 4 Corners CFO

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Danielle Hendon is a dedicated wife, mom, and the founder of 4 Corners CFO. With over a decade of corporate finance and accounting experience and CPA certification, Danielle specializes in helping small business owners understand their numbers, grow their profits, and pay themselves what they’re worth.

Her mission is to empower business owners to make confident, intentional financial decisions by breaking down complex financial concepts into actionable strategies. Danielle combines her love for numbers with a genuine passion for people, making a meaningful impact on livelihoods and legacies.

Inspired by her experience navigating corporate closures, Danielle now focuses on transforming businesses from burnout to balance, helping entrepreneurs focus on their joy and purpose while building sustainable profitability.

Connect with Danielle on Instagram and follow 4 Corners CFO on Facebook.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. I am stoked about my guest today, Danielle Hendon, who has been a friend, a client, a partner, a collaborator for several years now. And as a matter of fact, we spent a whole lot of time talking before we even hit the record button. I’m stoked to have her here from 4 Corners CFO, Danielle Hendon. Welcome to the show.

Danielle Hendon: Thank you so much for having me, Trisha. I love any chance I can at least get somebody to think about numbers, because they’re not as bad as we all think they could be. Right.

Trisha Stetzel: And one of the reasons why you and I engage so many years ago is because I have so many clients that just bury their head in the sand. They’re so afraid of the numbers, they don’t even want to look at them, which is what gets us in trouble. And on the back end. Right. Or even on the front end for that matter. So it’s something that we have to do. And what I love about what you bring to the table, Danielle, is just the simplicity behind how you teach your clients, or even help your clients do what they do around their numbers. So before we dive into all of that fun stuff, the numbers, would you just do a quick intro? Where you been, what you’re doing, what your business looks like, and who you’re looking to meet?

Danielle Hendon: Absolutely. I actually I love to start off by telling people I went to college to be a music major. I thought I was going to make a living as an opera singer and, um, no. I learned very quickly that I don’t have friends in high places, and I was going to be broke and needed to figure out a out a better way to actually foot the bill for living life. Um. I did, however, have friends in the accounting school at the University of Houston, and I tried it. Loved it. Stuck with it. Got my degree in accounting, and did like all of us do, and went into public public accounting on the other side of it. But like most people, when you work 60 hour work weeks and you have a baby at home, it tends to create a little bit of conflict. And I didn’t want to maintain that pace with a newborn. So after having kids, I decided to leave public and go into industry, which being in the Houston area meant I landed in oil and gas. That’s where all my experience was. It’s what I loved doing. It’s the people I loved working with. That being said, I was there for over a decade when oil prices tanked. And we’ve all, we all, anybody who’s in or around the Houston area knows the price of oil dictates everything. Um, and when they did tank, they ended up going through bankruptcy, which was a unique experience and not something I ever would have wished for.

Danielle Hendon: But hindsight being 2020, it gave me a lot of tools and a lot of flexibility and adaptability that has actually allowed me to create the business that I have today. So as they were downsizing from this billion dollar business to, I’m going to be honest, closing their doors, I was running the audit department, getting the phone call saying, look, I’ve got two people left. How do you want me to do this? Because I can’t do it the way we were. And we were constantly changing processes and procedures on the accounting and finance side of things, so that we could keep meeting our standards and our covering our risks, which was my job as the audit supervisor to make sure that we were doing. So all of that being said, they did finally close closed their doors, um, right in the middle of the pandemic. So I had what I will say is a unique opportunity. Oil and gas takes care of its people. And I was not left high and dry, but I was left unsure of what the future could hold while also having this eye opening experience. And I don’t want to take away from anything that people have struggled with because of the pandemic or the pain that people went through and the suffering that happened. But I think all of us experienced a silver lining in the sense that life slowed down. It had to. It was so much slower than the pace of normal American business, and for me, that meant getting a completely different perspective of parenting.

Danielle Hendon: I had two kids home at the time, and I became make sure they’re on their calls for school, and I know what they’re doing and how can I help them do it. And figuring out swim when or when it was or wasn’t still happening, and getting to know the parents and the friends and the coaches and the teachers in a way that I had not done before. We were honestly looking for a nanny before all of this happened, because I was like, throw somebody else at it. But I realized I didn’t want to throw somebody else at it. I wanted to get to do it. So taking a big step back in life, I was like, what? What can I do that allows me to do what I love and be there for the people that I love? And I love numbers. I know that sounds totally cheesy, but like, I can geek out over some spreadsheets and some numbers and strategy and it just makes my day. I also love being with my family, and I don’t want to be working ridiculous hours or driving two hours back and forth downtown. So I started Four Corners CFO to help other small business owners take control of their numbers and really understand the story that the that the numbers are telling. Because when you realize your numbers are just like any other language and they tell a story, you get to help write that story going forward.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh my gosh, I love that so much. And you know, opera singer accountant I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m just I’m not sure about that one. I thank you for telling the backstory. You’re so much fun to be around because you have such a diverse background and you do love numbers, unlike many of us, right? And the simplicity that you bring to the table. So I’m thinking about pulling out the one word because a lot of people are talking about their one word this year, and you happen to share yours with me, which I think is very interesting. So would you share your one word and what that really means to you and your business, and how you might share that with others?

Danielle Hendon: Yeah, so I know, thinking back through the four years now that I’ve been in In business, we’ve gone through slowdowns with Covid to burnout. On the other side, when life got back to normal, too. I don’t think life’s ever going to get back to normal, and we all just sort of feel in this overwhelmed state. And I say all because so many of my clients are going through something similar. And it brought me to the word homeostasis because balance doesn’t cover it. And sometimes there isn’t balance. A lot of times we have no control over what’s going to happen in the future, but we can set up systems, whether that’s people or technology or coaches or whatever it is, that help bring us homeostasis between the business and our personal life.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. So where as as I’m thinking about I don’t like numbers or I know people who don’t like numbers. Well, really, I don’t like numbers. Uh, where do we start? Where? How do we start to build this homeostasis in our lives. Because you’re right. I mean, honestly. So. Yes. Oh my gosh. It’s slowed down in 2020. And it was amazing. And now we’re going ten times faster than we were before we even went into the shutdown in 2020. So people are running themselves ragged ragged. How do you see homeostasis happening? Where do we start as business owners?

Danielle Hendon: This is going to sound totally cheesy, but you’ll get it. As a coach, it really starts with understanding why you are in business. I have had and I’m almost positive you’ve said this to me at some point, but I’ve had multiple, multiple people say this to me in the sense that I very quickly went from working my butt off in a corporate environment to working my butt off for myself, and that makes no sense. Like why I built this to not work my butt off. So asking yourself why you’re doing this. And a good friend of mine was actually like, if you’re just going to keep working your butt off, take away the anxiety of running a business and go do it in corporate. Like, if you’re not building a business that’s working for you because you’re working for it, what are you in this for?

Speaker4: Mhm.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So ask yourself why. Why am I in this business. What was the passion that I had before I started. Before I named the baby right. I had this passion for this business. So now I found that passion again. And I really want to make 2025 the best year yet. What do I do now?

Danielle Hendon: You define that. What is the best year yet? Means so many different things to people. I will tell you for me, because I know that I’ve been working my butt off homeostasis. The best year yet means my team doesn’t need me this year. And I’ve actually told them I could care less if we add any additional clients or revenue this year. I want everybody functioning fully efficient, doing what they need to do, and they don’t need me. That would be my best year yet. But for some people and some very good friends of mine, that best year yet means we ten-x revenue or the best year yet might be doubling revenue. You need to know what you need from your business and what the best year yet means to you personally, and translate that to what the business needs to do to serve it.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, I love that. Okay, so let’s talk numbers. I know everyone’s favorite subject. No, wait. It’s Danielle’s favorite subject.

Danielle Hendon: It is, I love it.

Trisha Stetzel: So, uh, a lot many business owners get into business. They don’t know the numbers. They don’t understand them. They’re afraid of them. They don’t look at them. The only time that we’re looking at numbers is when we send our books, which may or may not be done right over to our CPA, uh, April 14th, hoping that they that they might actually, you know, file on time or just file an extension and then do them in October. Right. So, hey, give me an extension. I’ll just get it done in October. Well, by the time we get to October, we’ve already lost a whole nother nine months worth of data moving into the next year. So we’re so far behind because we’re not even looking at the numbers. So for those that are just completely terrified of looking at the numbers, besides that terrible number that they see in the bank account every time they go and look at it, right, to see if they can write the next check. Where do we start?

Danielle Hendon: Now is the perfect time, because while you do have until April to file, your bookkeeping should be wrapping up right now for multiple reasons. First of all, you need to make sure everything’s booked and you know who you’ve paid and who paid you because 1090 nines are due in January. That doesn’t wait until April. So if for no other reason than to make sure you’ve got everything booked and you send off all the 1099, you need to be looking at your books this month. But also because I want you to look at last year and see how you did without judging yourself for it. No preconceived expectations. No. I wish we had this. You probably went into last year with a goal, but if you’ve never really looked at your numbers, that goal came from where? So take all that away and go look at last year’s. I want you to look at three things. I want you to look at your revenue. I want you to look at what is called your gross profit. So revenue minus cost of goods sold. When you look at a PNL, a profit and loss and income statement, whichever word meshes better with you, when you go look at that statement. You’re going to see revenue. You’re going to see a section for cost of goods sold. And then you’re going to see they’ll either call it net revenue gross profit. Something along those lines. I want you to know the overall revenue number for the year. I want you to know that gross profit number for the year. And then I want you to go all the way down, and you’re going to see a number that should likely say net income. And I want you to look at that number. The reason these three numbers matter revenue is what you sold.

Danielle Hendon: And I bet most of you have a pretty good handle on what that number probably looks like. A lot of people know their sales cost of goods sold, which then factors into your gross profit is all of those revenue generating costs. And if you are a service based business owner listening to this and you have zero there, I want you to go back and talk to your bookkeeper, because you and the people serving your clients in your business are a cost of goods sold. You need to know your profit margin. And then at the end of the day, what’s actually going to get left in your bank account is down on that net income line at the very bottom. I want you to know what those three numbers are. And then I want you to think, how did you feel about the year? Did 2024 feel like a gangbuster year for you? Did it feel weird? And I’m going to be honest, for a lot of my clients, 2024 felt weird. Election years are weird, and people have concerns that may have absolutely nothing to do with your business or what you do in business, but it will still keep them from spending money with your business. So think about what kind of year 2024 was for you, and what kind of year you want 2025 to be back to that, like where we were in the beginning. What do you want out of 2025? And reflecting on those numbers that you had for had for 2024. We’re not going to get super technical. We’re not going to even go look at monthlies or talk about budgets or all the other things we could do. I want you to have a goal for your revenue, your profit and your net income for 2025.

Speaker4: That’s so simple.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s why I love you. I’m so glad you’re here. Um, so I’m I’m. I’m thinking about how simple this is, and I’m thinking that there are still people out there like, oh, my gosh, way too technical. I’m not sure. I don’t know where to. I’m not I don’t even know what an income statement is. And what did she say? A p and a what? Uh, you know, so can you just real quick, wait before we go there, Danielle, if people are already interested and they want to find you, how do they find you right now?

Danielle Hendon: Best way to find me is going to be my website, which is the number four, not the word the number four corners cfo.com. And we will have a separate landing page just for you guys. And it’ll be Houston Biz Radio.

Trisha Stetzel: Freaking cool. Thank you so much I appreciate that. All right. So, um, back to my question. I think there are a lot of people who maybe confuse Danielle between the bookkeeper. And the CPA and what Danielle does. So can you explain at a high level, really, the difference between what you’re doing for business owners and what their CPA is doing for them already?

Danielle Hendon: I’m going to give a traditional accounting answer which says it depends because everyone’s a little different. But I will give you sort of the buckets that things sit in your bookkeeper normally, if all they’re doing is bookkeeping, is categorizing the activity that happens in your bank statement and on your credit cards. They’re categorizing the past of what you have already done in your business so that it can be reported on in those financial statements we talked about. Generally, a CPA, if they are tax focused, is helping you file your tax returns. Making sure you make any estimated payments throughout the year. And I hope if you’ve got a good one, they’re helping you strategize every quarter to spend as little money as possible in taxes. Occasionally you will see some mesh between bookkeepers and CPAs, just like you will see some crossover between bookkeepers, CPAs, and CFOs. There are three different types of CFOs you might experience. One is the let me go get funding CFO. You just got started. You’re looking for venture capital, equity loans. You’re looking for funding to get going. That is a very specific type of person that knows how to work that banking environment to help you get funding. There are also going to be what I would call project based CFOs as a company gets larger and they might need to go through an IPO. So they they want to go public or they need to go through different audit mechanisms for whatever their nonprofit requires.

Danielle Hendon: They might hire a CFO for a very project oriented process, or even implementing a new CRM or a new accounting system might take somebody to come in and do that accounting piece with you. Then you have CFOs that work very similar to how we do it for corners, and that is your operational CFO. They’re like your day to day accounting best friend. That’s going to be like, hey, what are we doing now? Oh yeah. This is this is what the numbers say. I think this will work. One of my favorite things to do with clients, from an operational CFO perspective is when they get the bright idea, because our entrepreneurs are often visionaries, when they have a bright idea and they’re like, oh my gosh, I’m going to go spend $4,000 on this thing because it’s going to be amazing and we’re going to do X, Y, and Z and wait, but how do I do that? And a lot of times people will reach out to a bookkeeper, accountant, CFO and say, can I, can I go do this thing? Can we afford to? And my response is always going to be, you can afford to do what you need to do in your business. You can always afford to. But what are we willing to sacrifice to get there? And how do we make sure you get an ROI, a return on investment on the other side of it?

Trisha Stetzel: Again, so simple. Right? Um, so let’s circle back to homeostasis. You know what you want in your business. You have a lot of I’ll call them products and services in your business that you can offer to other business owners. So if they too want to embrace the word homeostasis. What tools do you have to help them get started in that direction?

Danielle Hendon: In order to achieve homeostasis, you have to have systems, processes and people. And we embrace that by offering clients a variety of ways to learn your numbers. We know that not everybody can afford somebody else to do it for them. I’m going to be entirely honest when I tell you this. You are not going to want to be in your numbers. And I very rarely tell people we have a course because you’re not going to want to do it. But if you are really wanting to understand how to tell the story in your numbers, we do have a DIY course where it will walk you through all of our six part framework, as if you were doing it with us in a course format so that you know how to be your own CFO. By the time you finish it, you’re going to want to hire somebody. I’m just going to tell you that right now. But it’s a it’s a balance between time or money. And depending where you are in the business right now, it may not be the best move for you. If you are just getting started and just starting to look at your numbers. The first thing you want to do is make sure you’ve got a good bookkeeper. You’ve probably already made sure somebody’s filing your taxes, whether they’re strategic or not. That’s happening.

Danielle Hendon: I hope you’ve got you need to make sure you’ve got a good bookkeeper, because they’re just saying and I’m sure it applies in other industries, but especially in accounting, we always say garbage in and is garbage out. If you’ve got bad numbers going into that, you’re going to have bad numbers coming out in the reports and you’re going to make bad decisions. So a good bookkeeper is absolutely necessary. And our course is not meant to teach bookkeeping or how to use QuickBooks or any of that. We’re assuming that you’ve got someone on your team, but if you want to know how to tell the story that your numbers are, understand the Understand the story your numbers are telling. This course will walk you through how to dig in and build a budget and analyze your revenue. And what are your profit margins, and how can I cut my expenses and all of those things that help get you to that goal that we talked about. Now, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, there’s no way, no way I am going to do this for myself. Then we offered two other options. One is a VIP day where we will do it with you, and a very long six hours of finances. A lot to go through, but we will record it. We’ll do it with you.

Danielle Hendon: We will sit down and get through it together. And then we will follow up with you to make sure that you’re maintaining it. And we’ll do some quarterly strategy calls. Last but not least, if you’re like, I don’t want to touch it and I can afford not to touch it, and I’ve built a business so that I don’t have to touch it. You’re probably also thinking, what do I need this for? Because I’ve built a business without ever looking at it. I promise you, you need to look before you need to look because it’s really painful if you wait until you need it. That being said, getting someone on board to help you look, we do a done with you in the sense that we do all the numbers, but you make all the decisions, you have all the know, you have all the information to make that next best decision. And we do that in a done for you, done with you format along with the people, which is the next thing I’m going to mention. And this is a an offering. We are actually not yet launched but is in the works. So I’m going to tell you guys about it. We are working on our clockwork certification, which will help us help you work yourself out of the business and run a business like clockwork.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. Oh my gosh, such a wealth of knowledge you guys! Danielle brings big corporate knowledge and all of the things that she’s done over the past decade or so to small businesses. What a special treat. I’m so excited to have you on today. All right, before we leave, we’ve been reflecting on the past. We’re moving into 2025. Do you have a favorite client story from last year? Something that you can tell us about?

Danielle Hendon: Oh my gosh, I just got an email that lit me up actually just this week. We have a client and this is to show you guys you don’t have to have somebody else do it. You really can if you’re committed to it. Do this yourself and the course and the VIP day and all of those things work if you work them. So I met with this client for the very first time for a VIP day three years ago, and she had just broke into the six figures, wanted to get more into her numbers. We meet on a quarterly cadence just to see how things are going, and when we met in Q4, she was a little bummed. Like a lot of our clients have been, 2024 was not the easiest year for a lot of people. And she just felt like, why? Why are we doing this? Why? Why are we working so hard? I’m not paying myself enough. You know all the things. She sent me an email and said, thank you for making me look at my numbers. I just compared the last four years and guys, she grew by 50% from the first time I met her to her 2023 number. And that 2024 number that she was so afraid to look at was just as good as 2023. It’s not as bad as you think it’s going to be in your head, and what your bank account shows you is not always true.

Trisha Stetzel: That does not tell the story. It does not by far. Thank you for sharing that. I’m so glad you came on with me today. Uh, would love to have you back after tax season so we can talk maybe in the middle of the year and talk more about strategy for the back half of 2025. I think that would be a ton of fun. Uh, anything that you’d like to leave our listeners with today?

Danielle Hendon: I’m going to make you laugh, Trisha, because, you know, I can’t go on one of these and not talk about how important it is to pay yourself. So when it comes to homeostasis, when it comes to burnout, one of the biggest reasons business owners quit is because we quit because we’re burnt out. And if you are not paying yourself, I don’t care how well the business is doing, you’re going to go out of business. And I get it. I serve from a heart centered passion place, and you want to help all the people you can. But if you can’t stay in business, if you can’t pay your personal bills, you can’t help anybody. So make sure that you are putting your profit first. And I’m going to tag that one. Who? Mike Michalowicz is a huge, huge book author that I love. Um, he’s also the author of clockwork. But if you have not read profit first. If you are not putting your profit first, practice putting aside just 1% of your revenue and paying yourself first. It will make a world of difference in your business.

Speaker4: I love that.

Trisha Stetzel: All right. Tell folks how they can find you one more time.

Danielle Hendon: The number four corners cfo.com/houston biz radio.

Trisha Stetzel: Awesome. Thanks so much Danielle for being on with me today. This is amazing. What a great way to kick off 2025. Thanks again for being with me.

Danielle Hendon: Thanks, Trisha.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s all the time we have for today’s show. Join us next time for another exciting episode of Houston Business Radio. Until then, stay tuned, stay inspired, and keep thriving in the Houston business community.

BRX Pro Tip: 4 Business Lessons from Playing Poker

January 14, 2025 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: 4 Business Lessons from Playing Poker

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BRX Pro Tip: 4 Business Lessons from Playing Poker

Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you, Lee, you know that I have long maintained that there’s a great deal that you can learn from mob movies in terms of leadership and running an organization, but it’s your assertion that there’s plenty to learn from playing poker.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Playing poker and lots of games, especially games of strategy like poker. I’ve been reading a lot of books about poker and decision making, and this kind of thinking I thought was very transferable to business. So, four things, four lessons, maybe from playing poker.

Number one, calculate odds and manage risks. That’s so important in poker because you are constantly having to make decisions with limited information, just like you are in business all the time. So, you have to be able to kind of understand the probability of something happening or not happening and take the risk accordingly. Number two, it’s important to identify your edge. What’s your superpower that you have and lean into that, especially during challenging times. Number three, you have to manage your resources. Without a bankroll or a cash flow, you can’t play the game. So, manage your resources wisely. And number four, focus on your decision quality, not just the outcomes. And this is where it takes a lot of self-awareness and discipline. Sometimes, you can make the right call, but things don’t go your way. And other times you just got lucky. Knowing the difference is critical.

BRX Pro Tip: More Relationship Building Moments

January 13, 2025 by angishields

BRX Pro Tips

BRX Pro Tip: More Relationship Building Moments

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BRX Pro Tip: More Relationship Building Moments

Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tip. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, the Business RadioX Network has literally been built on what we call relationship-building moments. Say more about it.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Relationship-building moments are kind of, like you say, at the heart of what we do and a lot of the value that we provide for our clients and studio partners. And I think that a lot of professional services people and business coaches, they’re not understanding the importance of relationship-building moments and how to incorporate relationship-building moments with their prospects and clients. And by doing that, you’re going to be able to create stronger, more meaningful connections a lot faster. And this kind of activity, if you’re doing this tenaciously and relentlessly, this is going to help you elevate your relationship beyond that typical transactional interaction that most service providers have sadly. And at Business RadioX, we have systems in place that help our clients build deeper relationships faster.

And here are the four relationship building moments that our clients benefit from at the minimum. This is kind of just the table stakes when you start working with us, and what you’re able to do and how you’re able to use this to accelerate and nurture relationships. Number one, the first relationship-building moment comes when our clients invite a guest on a show. This is a very non-salesy, very service-oriented way to meet someone new and to introduce them to your services and yourself, just by inviting them on the show that we have created for you.

And a lot of our clients have a second relationship-building moment. They have a pre-call with the guest that helps the guest have a good experience when the interview actually takes place and it helps prepare them, it helps them get ready and make sure that they have a good experience when the interview happens.

Number three, the third relationship-building moment is that actual guest experience. And we want to make sure that the guest is prepared with anecdotes, and stories and success stories to share and advice to give, so they have a really good piece of content that’s going to help them get a client down the road.

And finally, the fourth relationship-building moment that we advise our clients to take advantage of is a follow-up call after the interview to make sure that the guest gets the most out of their interview, how they share it, how they use it. A lot of different ways to leverage that content so they get the most bang for their buck of doing the interview. So, if you want to learn how to add more of these moments to help you build your pipeline and grow your business, you should contact Business RadioX right now.

The Hidden Value of Your Business: How to Discover What It’s Really Worth

January 13, 2025 by angishields

Sandy Springs Business Radio

The Hidden Value of Your Business: How to Discover What It's Really Worth

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In this episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio, Ramzi Daklouche is joined by Jeff Kalil with VR Business Brokers. Jeff has a background in nuclear engineering, military service, and entrepreneurship. He shares his journey from aspiring astronaut to Army aviator, and eventually to business valuations. The discussion emphasizes the critical importance of understanding a business’s value, the optimal timing for obtaining valuations, and the differences between various types. Jeff advocates for regular valuations as part of strategic business planning, highlighting their role in informed decision-making and long-term success.

Jeff Kalil is the owner, principal broker, and certified business valuation analyst of VR Business Brokers of St. Louis. “VR” stands for Valued Representation.

Jeff retired from the military as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserves with 35 years of service and he flew reconnaissance helicopters in the active Army. He has 20 years corporate experience as a Senior Program Manager where he led and managed aerospace and defense programs supporting the Department of Defense and corporate Mergers & Acquisitions.

Jeff is a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA), a Certified Mergers and Acquisitions Professional (CM&AP), a certified Value Builder Advisor (VBA), a Master Business Intermediary (MBI), a certified Program Management Professional (PMP) and a Missouri licensed commercial real estate broker.

He was recently awarded the 2024 Top M&A firm in St. Louis by Small Business Monthly and Jeff is the founder of the Mid-America chapter of the International Business Broker Association.

Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn, X and Facebook.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Sandy Springs, Georgia. It’s time for Sandy Springs Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: This episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio is brought to you by V.R. Business Sales Atlanta, guiding business owners and buyers through successful transitions with trust and expertise. Visit world.com or call (678) 470-8675 to learn more. Now here’s your host, Ramzi Daklouche.

Ramzi Daklouche: All right. Thank you, Lee. And with us today is Mr. Jeff Kalil, who is actually another VR owner, but not in Atlanta. And with incredible background. So I cannot do justice to introductions. So I’m going to just allow you to introduce yourself first of all. Happy holidays Jeff. Good to see you.

Jeff Kalil: Thank you, Mr. Ramzi. I do appreciate it. It’s good to see you again, too. Thanks for having me on the show.

Ramzi Daklouche: Awesome. So why don’t you tell us a little bit, go back a little bit, because your background is very exciting and interesting. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us what you’ve done with your life. And where are you right now? Sure.

Jeff Kalil: So I guess to get started, you know, I’ll take you back to the days of little Jeff, just briefly. But, you know, when I was growing up, I wanted to be an astronaut. I thought going into space and going to Mars and seeing the universe was a cool thing to do. You know, as any other kid would want. And so as I, you know, was getting older and going through school, math and science was always, you know, my favorite subjects, I loved anything to do with it. I used to build a lot of rockets and little models for spacecraft and things, and so my mind was always occupied with that. But when I went to college, it turned out I needed some help to fund school. So I joined the Army Reserves, got the GI Bill and went to school on that. I was able to get my nuclear engineering degree, and along the way I had the chance with the organization I was a part of through ROTC that we had lunch with an astronaut one time, and I had asked him, I said, you know, that’s what I want to do. What would I have to do to be an astronaut someday? And he said, well, there’s three things that you need. And little did I know at the time, this was goal setting less than 101 for me.

Jeff Kalil: Right. But what he said was, you need to have a high tech degree. You need to be an officer in the military and you have to have flight experience. So those became my goals. So as I was going through college, I focused on nuclear engineering as my degree because that was at the time that was the highest tech degree field that I could find. I was in the reserves, so it was a matter of being becoming an officer. So I joined ROTC and was on my way to get commissioned in that. So the next hurdle I had was getting my flight experience. So as it happened, I ended up getting commissioned into the Army as an aviator, and I went off to fly Kiowa Warrior Helicopters, which is a reconnaissance helicopter back in the day. And that was, you know, I was on my way. But as life would have it, I never had the chance to go on and do the Army astronaut program like I wanted to, but I ended up having a lot of great experiences through the military. And along the way I had the chance, and I was recruited by companies out of corporate America.

Ramzi Daklouche: Before you go to corporate corporate, let me tell you something. I was thinking about it as you’re talking. Jeff, you were the first nuclear engineer I talked to, and I feel so dumb talking to you. I have no idea what to ask you. I’m looking forward to the conversation, but I’m kind of a little, uh, scared right now because I know a lot about you. But hell, if I knew you were a nuclear engineer. Which now I feel so dumb talking to you. But go ahead, keep going.

Jeff Kalil: No worries. Well, that’s why I like the math, which we’ll get into later here as we get into more of the the meat of the show, which is talking about, uh, business valuations and how can we improve that and so on. But um, but that’s where that background comes from. Right? So as I was, um, going through my career, you know, I ended up leaving active duty Army, uh, went into the private sector, worked for a aerospace and defense industry contractor, and I helped them with, uh, refurbishing aircraft from the Department of Defense and putting those aircraft back into service. So, uh, in between all that, I started to dabble in this thing we call entrepreneurship. And I started first by flipping a few houses here and there. This was in Texas, central Texas. And, uh, as I was building up my little portfolio of real estate, I would have people come to me and ask me, you know, here and there, well, oh, that’s interesting. How do you do that? I’ve always thought about doing a deal like this, or I’ve been wanting to start a business of some kind, and, uh, and, and I had a couple of other smaller franchises. I had a Tcby yogurt and Mrs. Fields cookies that I had picked up along the way too. So I was a pretty busy guy. I had my corporate job, which required a lot of travel, plus the programs that I managed. I was in the reserves still, so I still had that commitment every month and every year.

Jeff Kalil: And then I had my side business where I was doing some property management, some property flipping and then running these two franchises. So I was pretty busy and people wanted to know, you know, how was I able to do it? So what I did is I had a I would always go to Denny’s on Saturday mornings down there, and I’d get there early, like 5:36 a.m. I get my eggs and coffee and take my little laptop and I would just plan out my week. I was very disciplined about what needed to be done and try to make my agenda. And so I would tell folks, well, if you want to talk about what you got. Come meet me on Saturday at Denny’s. That’s the only time I really have. And let’s see what you do. So as time would go by, we outgrew the corner booth. You know, two people turns into four, turns into six and so on. So the lender, the bank where I did a lot of my deals from, they had a conference room. They let me use that room for a while that held about 15 people. We outgrew that. And then eventually there was a fellow that had a barbecue restaurant with an event center held about 50 or 60 folks, and we did a trade out where I was able to host my meetings there in exchange that I would encourage folks to, you know, buy the, the, the from the menu for the meetings that we held. And it worked out really good.

Jeff Kalil: At the peak of it, we had about 60 people a month that would come down for the the weekly meetings. And it was a range of everything related to entrepreneurship. It was basically like entrepreneurship 101. Most of them wanted to learn real estate, but others had, you know, ideas of starting their own business or they had a business. They wanted to learn how to grow it. Um, I would introduce them to, you know, the professionals in our industry, like the lenders, the CPAs, um, I kept the gurus out. I mostly focused on the education. And how can you can you become an entrepreneur? And what I recognize right away is that people were doing this because they their motivations were they wanted to change their lifestyle. They had passion behind helping, you know, their kids go to college. Maybe they wanted to change the trajectory, the trajectory of their lives. And most importantly, you know, this was um, this was before, during and after the recession in oh seven and oh eight when the real estate market crashed. So a lot of people, their economy had really changed and a lot of people went upside down. And so they were looking for a way to, you know, change that dynamic. And they saw entrepreneurship as a way to get there. So that’s what the flavor of the club was. And I really enjoyed, you know, helping people and seeing people find those successes that translated into helping their families live a better life. So to fast forward that, our industry started to lay off around 2014 as troops were getting withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq and the defense spending went down.

Jeff Kalil: So as our industry started to started to contract. I was worried about a layoff, so I ended up transitioning from Texas back here to Saint Louis and Missouri, where I’m from originally. And after I got here, turns out they laid us all off anyways. But those entrepreneurship conversations just seemed to follow me. It seemed like everywhere I went, somebody wanted to talk about real estate or starting a business or something of that nature. So one of the things I did in my corporate job is I did M&A work on mergers and acquisitions work. And so I had a, you know, a background in that as well. So I just thought, you know, after having all these conversations and I had and as you know, or folks on the on the show here don’t know, VR is a business broker franchise. So I had spoken with the folks there at VR a few years prior just to look for a veteran friendly business opportunity. Um, and so I ended up, I called him back and I just said, hey, if you don’t have an office or a franchise in the Saint Louis area, I’d be interested in taking a look at that. And with that, that was, um, you know, going into 2015 and then going into 2016. And I ended up opening up my VR office here. And one of the things that I ended up specializing in is business valuations.

Jeff Kalil: I got my certification through the SBA, which is the International Society of Business Appraisers, and got my certification right about the time Covid started. So, you know, kind of had the had the time to sit down and focus on that, then not much else was going on, but I’d been doing, you know, pretty detailed valuations prior to that. And I knew what it looked like in my M&A portion of my prior career. So I just wanted to bring something that was a little bit more, um, storytelling to the table as opposed to some of these generic broker opinion of values or broker price opinions that most people provide. And that’s what you get. I want to be able to show you not only what I think the value of your business is, but explain to you why. And lots of times you can’t tell that story when you get a generic, um, value from, uh, you know, a basic equation like a like a multiple of something. Yeah. So that’s where I sort of differentiate myself in that. And so that’s kind of where I’m at now. And then as you know, uh, for uh, VR as a franchise office goes, uh, I do their corporate training for new franchisees and I help bring them on board and, you know, give them the, uh, the first taste of the Kool-Aid so they get a sense of what is it like to be a business broker. And then I’m, uh, then I’m there as just their ongoing advisor. So that’s.

Ramzi Daklouche: Uh, trust me, I don’t envy you with that one. You had to put up with me and with Claudia for, you know, a few days. So I don’t envy, uh, you know, you having to do this, but I appreciate everything you’ve done. But I mostly appreciate your time and service. And thank you for your service. We all appreciate it. Of course. So, Jeff, before we go.

Jeff Kalil: To just real quick, Ramzi, I had, uh, 35 years altogether and I retired as a lieutenant colonel. So, you know, that’s incredible.

Ramzi Daklouche: That is absolutely incredible. Uh, what an honor to be talking to you. First of all, I’ve known you now for a little bit, but, uh, the more I hear your story, the more I more I learn more about you, which is incredible. And what you studied kind of makes me a little bit nervous talking to you, but it is what it is. It’s all good. So, uh, before we go into, you know, different valuation, all the stuff, you know, I’ve done merger, acquisition work for the past 20 years, and now I do more for, you know, smaller businesses and, you know, owning my own office. So a little bit different. Jeff, what I found out what I worry about is so many businesses have no idea what the value of the business is. And more important is when I ask ten people in any meeting how many people know the value of your house and they all raise your hand? Absolutely. They know the value of the house. So same ten people. How many people know the value of their business? Actually, 11 people raise their hand saying, I don’t know the value of my business. Uh, which is kind of scary because in some instances, it’s the second largest, uh, investment you have. And in some instances, also it’s the largest investment you have. And not knowing the value of it is kind of scary. Uh, for a lot of reasons in my in my book. So what are your thoughts on when should person understand the value of the business? One should start looking into this and how easy is it to get the value for your business?

Jeff Kalil: Yeah, ideally you know when you’re like, let’s say you’re planning a trip and you want to go say from, well, we’re in someplace cold right now because we’re having this mini snowstorm going on. But let’s say that you want to travel from New York to California. You know, whatever it is you want to do. Well, there’s some planning that you do that you do, you know, beforehand, you know, what do I need to pack? What’s my checking list look like? Where am I going to go, or am I going to stay? What’s my mode of transportation? Right. So as you’re making those pre-planning and maybe you got to take off work, maybe you got to coordinate for someone to care for the house, the yard, the dogs, whatever, while you’re gone, maybe you’ve got some other family responsibilities, like someone has to care for or check in on mom and dad and so on. As you think about how you plan for that trip and all of the pre-work. Then the work of the actual executions. Now you got the family in the car and you’re on the road. Well, we got to stop for restroom breaks.

Jeff Kalil: We got to stop for gas, got to spend the night somewhere and all that. As you’re doing that kind of detailed planning, that same level of detailed planning should go into your business plan. And you want to have that pre-planning of what is it that I’m going to do with this business and say, ten, 15, 20 years, if that’s my, you know, outlook, because you’re not going to be there forever. Something’s going to happen, whether it’s the economy, whether it’s your health, whether it’s external, um, something more internal, like family, uh, something’s going to cause you to not be able to do that business anymore. So when you’re doing your business planning, and I know it’s probably the last thing you want to think about or even the last thing that comes to mind. But somewhere on that checklist should be an exit plan or exit strategy or what is what is my out of the business scenario going to look like. So I would say that the short answer to that question is the day you plan the business, you should also be planning what that exit is going to look like.

Ramzi Daklouche: Perfect. Thank you. Yeah. I tell you, my experience is anytime you’re doing your strategy for the next year, you really should have the value. You understand the value of your business. So what are you basing it on? Right. And how are you going to grow the business? The value of the business makes a lot of sense to do that. So there’s always a there’s never a bad time in my book to do valuation for your business, not because you’re always going to sell it just to understand if something happens to me today or like you or, you know, God forbid, a divorce, death or anything like that, uh, understand the value. Now, there’s another conversation we can have about what should you do to prepare if something like this happens and, you know, prior to that. But right now we’re going to focus just on valuation of a business. Right. So now understanding this you know I’m not in valuation and I get asked that a lot. So what’s the what’s the difference between this valuation? You know, I got a valuation last year from this guy on my CPA or, you know, the, you know, my, uh, pastor at church told me this is my what my business is, you know, you hear from everybody, right? So tell.

Jeff Kalil: Me. Yeah, your Uncle Fred told you.

Ramzi Daklouche: My uncle Fred. I love Uncle Fred. He’s around all the time when you need answers, right? But what’s the right way of getting valuation? I mean, you know, I don’t want to. I’m a small business owner. Let’s start with that. Well, I don’t spend a lot of money on a valuation, or I shouldn’t spend money on valuation. What’s the fastest, best way to get, like, you know, a run of the mill valuation? And how do you go up from there? And why should we even go up from there?

Jeff Kalil: Yeah. So there so there’s a lot to to open from that. Right. So a lot of business owners assume that they need the value. They need a business valuation when it’s like a critical moment in the business. So for example, um, there’s a health issue with the owner. They believe that the solution is they have to sell the business so that the owner can step out and take care of their health. And the buyer comes along and now we need a valuation or there’s a corporate change of some kind, the board of directors. Either someone’s being bought out, someone’s being brought in. Maybe it’s part of a succession plan. It’s time for junior to step up or, um, or, uh, you know, someone else in the family has decided that they’re ready to take over the family legacy. And the board’s been looking for a while. Whatever that emotional event is that they typically or stereotypically might think that, hey, we need now we need a business valuation. There are those needs, and there are those instances. And you want a valuation that is going to speak to the purpose of the event. Um, a valuation will have certain premiums and discounts assigned to it in the course of developing it that are determined by the purpose of that valuation. So, uh, you can have a valuation for a bankruptcy or a partner dispute. And that valuation might be looking a little different because maybe there’s some animosity among the staff.

Jeff Kalil: Maybe there’s some issues with paying vendors and payments are late, and maybe that’s part of the issues that are driving the scenario around this business and why the partners are not getting along. So when you have, you know, like a negative scenario around a business, those discounts might be bigger and you may not have any premiums to assign. Whereas if you’ve got a business that is demonstrating very strong brand loyalty, very strong customer loyalty, you’ve got a high degree of highly motivated and excited workforce. And people love to work for your company, you will find that they can, uh, beef up the premiums on some of the goodwill, uh, characteristics of a business. So there’s a lot of reasons why a valuation can range in value and why it can be different, and what the purpose of that valuation is will determine a lot of that too. But what I try to share with business owners is you don’t have to wait for the emotional event to come around and say that. Now I got to get a valuation. Oh my gosh, what am I going to do? A valuation should be part of just your regular course of business, and an annual valuation is probably enough to give you an idea of a lot of things. It can tell you if you’re on track to reach that long term goal for your exit strategy.

Jeff Kalil: It can highlight areas where you might be bleeding money or bleeding value from your business, and it might also show you areas where. Hey, I’m doing really well in this and this is really giving me, you know, a big plus on my valuation. What other things can I do to get a better valuation out of this? But the valuation should be more than just a number. Lots of times the valuation that you get it could be a range or it could be a specific number, but it should be something that gives you that additional information, such as here, are the detractors or the things in your business that are holding the value back. And here are some things in your business that are actually making your valuation, you know, more attractive. And understanding those things is what a good valuation and a good business advisor can interpret for you. So that’s I think if there’s one good message out of all of this, the valuation isn’t something that you do just because you have to. The valuation should be a tool that you use as part of your overall business management. I mean, you’re as a business owner, you’re looking at financials, you’re looking at, um, work schedules, you’re looking at, uh, product, um, quality. Why not look at the value of your business in much the way that you look at these other metrics in your business, too?

Ramzi Daklouche: Yeah. I 100% agree with you. I think the valuation, especially the ones that are a little bit more thought through by somebody like yourself who is a certified Evaluator helps a business really directionally, and they can use a part of their writing, their strategy for the year, next year, or whatever strategy about a three year strategy or five year strategy, because you can talk about, you know, what’s good about your business. Here are some areas you can, you know, expand on or get better at so you can get a better valuation of the business. Right. So because I tell you and I’m sure you’ve dealt with it with the amount of years you’ve been doing it, especially with small business is the heartbreaker for me is when I’m talking to somebody who’s about to retire and say, listen, I need $3 million. I had a guy, $3 million to retire. I said, okay, great. Well, let me, you know, let’s do an evaluation. And it was way, way under that. And he said, I cannot retire yet. And he he has cancer. He has issues. So at that point kind of woke me up. Said, how do you kind of preach to small businesses, get a valuation, understand your business is don’t go blind running your business because it’s just, you know, blind leading the blind if it’s your stock portfolio, you know exactly where it stands every day on your phone.

Jeff Kalil: That’s why I was going to say, yeah, you know, you.

Ramzi Daklouche: Look at your house. You know, exactly where the house, you know, goes. And the house really, there’s not much you could do except put a pool, get $15,000 extra. Right? There’s not much painted and get another 2000, whatever. But a business is a completely different entity. Business is a completely different animal for you know what you have now contracts. So much goes into business valuation. So how do you know? Is there a way for business owners to kind of say, okay, I think I’m here or I think I’m there in valuation and you know, what are the things and explain valuation, the ABCs of it. Just simple. The simple valuation. What does it look like? What should a business owner look like? Look for.

Jeff Kalil: So so say you’re a small business owner and maybe you’re two, three, four, five years, give or take into your business and you have a sense of what your business does. You’ve got a sense of the cash flow. You have a sense of what your profit margins might look like, And you probably know, you know, a good handful of your customers. Maybe you know those customers by name. You know your vendors, you know who some of your contractors are and so on. So you’re humming along in your business and you feel like things are great. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you either, you know, hear a show like this or you come across an article somewhere and they talk about business value and you think, oh, my business is probably worth $1 million. Then you go and you get the valuation done and find out that it falls short of that number. Well, when you’re a few years into your business, hey, that’s okay. That’s information. You know, if you don’t agree with it, then dig into the numbers and understand where the numbers are coming from. Once you understand how the value is determined, then you know what to go in and tweak. Now you know what to go into your business and make adjustments on.

Jeff Kalil: But in that scenario, like you said, with the older gentleman who’s, you know, at the end of his 20 or 30 year business career and he’s ready to sell and he’s got to sell because, you know, he’s got to leave and take care of himself. You’re one your runway to turn that around and try to find that value that you want becomes a lot more difficult. So as with anything, like you said, you know, you might know the value of your house, the value of your stock. And we all watch gas prices every day. And I’m sure that on some level, we’re all paying attention to grocery prices and things like, we have a sense of those things. Then we go out, we spend the money, and we realize, here’s exactly what that looks like. Your business valuation as a as a business owner should be that same thing. You should have that regular pulse of what is the value of my business now, it doesn’t have to be the rocket science like on any random Tuesday. You shouldn’t be like, oh, my business is 1,547,060 $0.07, right? But you should know that not only is my value based on past performance, but I’ve got I’ve got these plans in place.

Jeff Kalil: I’ve got some some tactics or some strategies that are that are being implemented today that will add value in the future. And if those come to fruition, then I can anticipate that my value is going to be X at this future point in time. So the valuation is a should be looked at as like a living metric, a live metric. And if I was the small business owner, I would make that part of my annual assessment. And then that annual assessment would be what is the value of my business and what are my goals short term, long term, medium term and long term. And then I would weave in those value drivers in that valuation to make sure that those are part of those goals. That way, next year when I do my next assessment, I would naturally assume that my valuation would go up. But if my valuation doesn’t go up and maybe it dips, or maybe it stays flat, now I know that, hey, maybe I didn’t implement the right things, or what were the things that caused that valuation to not not move the needle, if you will. But it certainly is an indicator, and it’s an indicator that you want to have some visibility on.

Ramzi Daklouche: Great. Uh, Jeff, I don’t want to, uh, kind of talk a little bit about the process of but one thing that I found, uh, with valuation is when businesses at any level, right, any size business, they keep their financials in order, right. If they use CPA or bookkeeper or however they use will help with the valuation be more accurate. Right. And they may lose actually money if they don’t really do that, because we need to be able to kind of dig into all your, uh, spending, all your personal spending, um, and to get to really good valuation. So and hopefully they have years under their belt now with valuations of course, there are levels of valuations. And uh, you know, the one that scares me the most is when people only get valuation to sell the business. Right. Because they may go to three or 4 or 5 brokers, ten brokers, and they may have ten different prices. We’ve talked about that multiple times. Why does that happen? Why do you get I mean, if valuation is a valuation, why would ten brokers give you 12 different price different valuations.

Jeff Kalil: Yeah sure. So let me let me answer that by sharing a couple of stories. So first it’s going to be an Army story. And and Ramzi you know me I’m always I’m always full of army stories. I know there’s but there’s a moral to it at the end. Right. So as an aviator, we have to have certain weather to fly. Even in the military, you got to have certain weather to fly. And in the general sense, when we’re going out, just doing some training or just some normal, you know, kind of day to day, I would say flying and just building up our hours and getting in a little bit of experience along the way. If you’re at a certain airport and let’s say there’s a thunderstorm nearby and the clouds are low and it’s just not looking good, you can’t really see any sunshine. And there’s forecasts for rain. Well, if you can’t fly based on the conditions or based on the report that you’ve got for the type of aircraft that you have, I’m not going to get into all that, but different aircraft can fly in different weather conditions. But let’s say that you’ve got some minimums here. There’s this thing we call in the aviation community shopping for weather. So you’re at this airport. You see, the weather is what we call skoshi or, you know, it’s not great, but it’s such that it falls below the minimums you need and you can’t take off.

Jeff Kalil: So what you do is you call another airport that might be in your region, but their weather report is a little bit better, and maybe that weather report exceeds the minimums in such a way that that allows you to take off. So you file a flight plan using that weather report and you say, I’m going to travel from here to there under this weather guideline. It doesn’t mean that the weather that you’re at is going to change. You’re just using some other weather report and you’re not supposed to do that. But there are pilots that will do that. The valuation is much the same way. You go to appraiser A or broker A, and they give you a number and you don’t like it. So you go to the next one and you go to broker to broker until you find a number that you like. Here’s the thing. A valuation I tell everybody this. We probably had this conversation too. You can get ten appraisers in a room and give them all the same data, all of the valuation formulas that are out there and say, give me a value for this business. Out of those ten appraisers, you’re going to get 11 different answers. No one’s going to give you the same number. And even in there, there’s going to be a range you’re going to have.

Jeff Kalil: It’s going to be like a bell curve. You’re going to have some guys that are really low, some guys that are really high, and then some folks in the middle that might be within a ballpark of each other. The thing about the valuation is that the valuation methods, the approaches, the methodologies, those are textbook, you know, their formulas. It’s kind of like y equals mx plus b a squared plus b squared equals c squared. You know, the formulas are the formulas. Those by the way are not valuation formulas I don’t want don’t want people going out like that. But just as the example is that those formulas are locked in, like that’s the math. What’s different is two things the data set that you get. So okay, if we all agree that we’ve got the same data and the data is tax returns, income statements and balance sheets. If we can agree that we’ve got the same data, then the only other thing after that that can change are the assumptions. Well, I might go to one chart with a table and do some left, right, up, down and pick a number based on my opinions based on how I interpret the numbers. And that’s my assumption, is that we’re going to go with this number. Someone else across the table from me, she might go through the same thing and pick a different number from a different chart, from a different table.

Jeff Kalil: However, those assumptions are weighed in on the valuation is now where that subjectivity, that opinion driven side of the valuation kicks in. And now that’s where we get into the discussion, because we can’t debate the math, we can’t debate the data. Okay. I have had people. For example, I had a SBA loan recently where a bank was trying to get this deal done. It was around $4 million. I do the third party independent business valuation appraisals for those those banks. They couldn’t figure out, um, where the assets, the value of the assets lie. Now I do business appraisals. I’m not an asset appraiser specifically, but I use the information from the balance sheets. I told them that based on the information that you gave me, which, again, we don’t dispute the data. If that’s what you want, that’s what I’ll crank. But when I told them that the value of the business was driven by the assets listed on the balance sheet, all of a sudden the owner and the seller come back to the table and say, oh, wait, we have different, um, asset reports here that we failed to give to the bank. Can we still use those? And so they provided this, you know, authentic, uh, sheet of a printout of all of the assets that belonged to the to the business.

Jeff Kalil: But what they did is they went back through and they there were some vehicles that weren’t going to transfer. There were some tools that were not going to transfer. There were some private things that belonged to the owner that were not going to transfer. But we got a good list of the things that we’re going to transfer. And once we reconciled that list, then it made it. It was enough of a change that it justified a revision to the valuation that now the underwriter at the bank said, now this makes a lot more sense to us. And then they were able to get that deal through. So when you’re looking at this, it’s a matter of understanding what is what. I guess what is consisting within the deal, but also to how does that value get interpreted by the parties that are involved. If it’s just the business owner and it’s a routine, like they’re doing it annually, maybe semiannually, they know what they know what is going on. There’s a plan behind it. There’s strategy, maybe some marketing plans, maybe some product development, things like that. A new sales push, whatever. They know what’s going on. But when you got a sale going on, you don’t know what’s going on with the buyer. You may not know what’s going on with the seller. That valuation is the only point where they have to come together and agree on things like, what are the assets or what are we offering for goodwill? But I’ll add to that, valuations are confidential and we haven’t really touched on it yet here.

Jeff Kalil: But whenever you go out to get a valuation done, if you’re the one asking for it, it should be confidential to you. If you just want to know the value of your business, you don’t have to tell anybody unless you have an obligation, maybe to share the information with the board or with a partner. But that’s your number and it doesn’t go anywhere. Appraisers do not take that information and publish it on a website somewhere. The government doesn’t see it. Secret organizations don’t see it. That’s just a report between you and that appraiser. When you’re doing the deal through a bank and it’s part of an SBA loan, Alone. Then it depends on the scenario. But if it depends on who’s buying it. Now the bank is the client. The bank is the customer for that appraisal. But if the buyer is paying for it, then the buyer is going to be privy to the value. If the seller is paying for it, then the seller is going to be privy to the value between all those parties. They have to decide if they want to share that value or not. I would say most of the times they do, because everybody wants to know if the offer is going to get approved by the SBA underwriters.

Jeff Kalil: But that’s a scenario or that’s a special case there. But in general, when you get the valuation done, that’s just a number for you. What you want to do with that number, though, is that as you’re approaching your exit strategy milestone, maybe it’s 20 years in business. Maybe it’s a certain revenue goal you had. Maybe it’s a certain life marker, like maybe you want to when you’re 65, you want to sell the business, whatever that is. Then that valuation then becomes your tool to know what can I expect the market, these buyers to come to come to me and make me offers at. As long as you’re getting offers that are around that number and above, then you’ve done all the right things. But if you’re getting offers that are low, or someone is intentionally trying to lowball you or pressure you into a sale, a good valuation is something that’s defendable. You can hold your ground. You can plant your feet and say, nope, I’m sorry, my business is worth this as much as the day is long. Because here’s all the things we’ve been doing for the last ten years, and now this valuation is justifiable. So there’s a lot of ways that you can get leverage from a good valuation too.

Ramzi Daklouche: Jeff, this is amazing. I think, you know, you can write books about valuation. I probably should write a book about valuation. But besides that. So just to kind of, uh, you know, at the end of this, uh, podcast, if you have like two simple, um, advice, you know, about valuation for small businesses, what would they be? How would you finish this?

Jeff Kalil: Yeah, I would say that if you’re a small business that’s been in business for at least two years, get that initial valuation done, get a formal one as a baseline. You’re not ready to sell yet, of course, but you need to know what is the trajectory. What is the the the the path that my business is taking? And is that a path that I want? Because in most cases, at the two year mark, most businesses either fail or they’re just at the cusp of that. We’re probably going to make it phase, but is it going in the direction that you want it to go? So the valuation will help you understand that. The second thing is find a good business advisor that not only understands how to use a valuation as a tool, they don’t have to be a certified appraiser. But if they understand how to use the valuation as a tool to help you run your business, then that’s going to help you set up the best circumstances that will attract a buyer someday, so that now you can have an offer that is going to be something that you want. It’s going to be something that meets your needs, and it’s going to be something that makes you feel good, say a year after the sale, because there’s there’s a survey that was done out there that reported something like 75% of business owners regret the sale of their business post selling. And you don’t want to be in that category. You know, you don’t want to regret selling because you could have gotten more or you could have had a better offer. And the valuation really is at, you know, I guess out of all the things that you’re doing, if that’s the driver for determining value, then understanding how that’s done is going to be key. So it’s it’s a learning curve. It’s just like learning your your um your QuickBooks. You know, learning your operations plan, learning how your vendors get billed. You need to learn how your valuation is being determined.

Ramzi Daklouche: That’s awesome Jeff. Well, listen, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. And by the way, if anybody’s interested in valuation, you can always contact Jeff through the VR system or contact us in Atlanta and we’ll connect you with Jeff. Would be more than glad to. So again, thank you, Jeff, for your time. And uh, looking forward to an incredible 2025 with you.

Jeff Kalil: Oh you bet. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I know we could talk valuation and just business stuff all day long, but we’ve done that. Yeah, I hope this. Hope this tickles everybody’s interest enough to ask a little bit more. Uh, but certainly it’s an exciting topic. You know, there’s a lot of things that drive value of a business. And you’d be surprised what you uncover when you start taking a good, hard look at it. So thanks, Ramzi. Again, I do appreciate it. Uh, glad you had a good year last year, but looking forward to what you guys, you and Claudia are going to do this year too.

Ramzi Daklouche: Awesome. Thank you very much, sir.

About Your Host

Ramzi Daklouche is Principal at VR Business Sales. His mission is to facilitate seamless transitions for business owners looking to sell or scale. The organization’s four-decade legacy in managing transactions, from modest enterprises to extensive mergers, resonates with his expertise in mergers and acquisitions. Our collaborative approach consistently unlocks the true value of businesses, ensuring sellers’ peace of mind throughout the process.

His journey began when he left corporate world to venture into the challenging realm of entrepreneurship. After running their own business for several years and earning accolades for their dedication to service and quality, he decided to establish VR Business Sales Mergers and Acquisitions Atlanta. Their mission is to provide unmatched value through transparency, security, diversity, service, and experience.

At VR Business Sales Mergers and Acquisitions Atlanta, they empower business owners and buyers with clear, honest guidance and exceptional service throughout every step of the transaction process. While their office is based in Atlanta, they offer their services nationally and globally, embracing diversity and engaging with a broad spectrum of communities and businesses.

With decades of industry expertise, they aim to build lasting relationships based on trust and excellence, enabling their clients to achieve their business goals with confidence and peace of mind. Whether they are transitioning from owning their business or moving toward ownership, they’re here to support every step of the way, navigating the vibrant landscape of Atlanta’s business community and National & Global markets for remarkable success.

Connect with Ramzi on LinkedIn.

Joe Lemmo with WIT

January 9, 2025 by angishields

Cherokee Business Radio

Joe Lemmo with WIT

00:00 /

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: Welcome to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX, where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. I’m your host, Sharon Cline. And today in the studio we have the director and performer of Woodstock Arts Improv Troupe, and they teach classes for adults, teens, youths. And he is also a teacher and has been a teacher for 25 years. Hats off to you. This is Joe Lemmo.

Joe Lemmo: Yes. Thank you. I’m excited to be here. Appreciate the invitation.

Sharon Cline: Of course. I’m so happy you could come on a day. That’s not my normal, fearless formula Friday. Because we are supposed to get some snow, right? A little nervous about it.

Joe Lemmo: I was hoping we could have done it earlier in the day. You could have given me, like, a doctor’s note, and I could have gotten out of the school day. I wish I had power like that. No, I love what I do. I wouldn’t I wouldn’t want to do that. No.

Sharon Cline: Well, so I’m excited to hear kind of about how you got started in improv. I was doing, of course, my typical cyberstalking.

Joe Lemmo: Limited cyberstalking.

Sharon Cline: Yes. Uh, to be able to ask you some good questions. But what I wanted to know is initially you were you grew up in is it Erie, Pennsylvania?

Joe Lemmo: Yes. Erie, Pennsylvania. How did you.

Sharon Cline: Come down here?

Joe Lemmo: Well, I have relatives, aunt and uncle, who live here and still live here, and I was traveling in the summers since I was 16. I loved to come down to Georgia and kind of visit and always had a good time. And then when I was studying to be a teacher in 99, I graduated in December 99th. They talked about job growth down south. They said, if you want to get a teaching job, you want to you’re willing to move Carolinas, Florida, Georgia. You’ll get a job right away. And they were right. So I decided decide to move, talk to my parents. So what do you think? They go. Yeah. Let’s. You should do it. So I did it. And, uh, 25 years later, a wife, two children and a 25 year career in teaching and improviser. Now, about 15 years.

Sharon Cline: I’m still here a whole life.

Joe Lemmo: Yes, it’s. Well, it’s interesting when you look at that. I’m 47 and I’m like, oh my goodness, 25. That’s over half of my life now. I’ve been in Georgia. So does it feel.

Sharon Cline: Like home to you now?

Joe Lemmo: I guess so, yeah, it does pretty much. Um, you know, up north, people are always, you know, people are always like, you bump into people in the South all the time. Wait, where are you from? I don’t, I don’t you don’t sound like you’re from the south. And then you you start talking and finding other people who are also from the north. So, you know, I still still refer to that as the home, you know?

Sharon Cline: Okay. So I’m excited to talk to you because I got to see you, um, and my friend Christine Fitzgerald, who is just we did a play together a couple of years ago, and she’s just a wonderful human. And she was taking one of your classes, so I got to see her performance a couple of weeks ago, and it just seemed so fascinating to me, the whole process of it and and the bravery it takes to be on stage like that. This is not something that you sort of grew up doing though, right?

Joe Lemmo: That’s right. Yeah, I was I grew up playing hockey and soccer. Those were my, my two sports and a little bit of tennis. Nothing at all to do with the theater. Not even interested in going to plays, obviously. I loved going to movies. And so it was very far from, you know, it’s far from what I was doing growing up. And even in my family, nobody was an actor or pursued performance. So it was definitely a surprise when I got into improv. Definitely.

Sharon Cline: So how did you get exposed to it?

Joe Lemmo: Well, I it’s interesting because Woodstock Arts, I consider myself an OG.

Sharon Cline: With.

Joe Lemmo: Woodstock Arts because I take us back to the town. Lake Arts Center is what it used to be called, Telarc. And it used to be located a tiny little performance center on Bells Ferry Road on Kellogg Creek. I think it was like near Kellogg Creek in Bells Ferry. Very small, about 103 seat, you know, venue. I was recruited to become a board member for the theater at that point, because I was an educator, and they thought it would be nice to have an educator on the at the time. So I joined and we were actually moving the theater from town, like art center there all the way to downtown where it is located now. And we just got that space from the city. So Woodstock. Yes. So we we had to, you know, pick up props and load things and put them in boxes. And I just couldn’t help myself that I was putting stuff on. I was like putting helmets on and swords and coming out and becoming characters. And people are like, Joe, we’re supposed to be moving the stuff, not putting it on. But I was like, I don’t know what came over me. I’ve always enjoyed entertaining my friends, my my family, my family members and my friends. So at the time, the the troupe director was getting ready to to start the improv team there, she said to me, you know, have you ever considered improv? And I was like, I, I don’t know what that is. I no, I have not. And so I ended up auditioning for the troupe. I made it and then, you know, I was a part of it for a while. And then I became the director after a certain amount of time.

Sharon Cline: Okay. So you auditioned and and just got in that easy.

Joe Lemmo: Yeah. It was, uh, you know, I mean, just, I guess it was natural, uh, natural ability, um, you know, improvisers really, everybody improvises all day long. You know, it’s something we do, and some people are more comfortable, you know, doing that and having conversations. But yeah, it felt natural to me. I enjoyed the creativity as an educator as well, uh, being willing to, you know, picture things and become characters and personification, all that kind of stuff just kind of fell into place for me as a performer.

Sharon Cline: What did it feel like the first time that you auditioned and everything? I mean, you didn’t have any training at all.

Joe Lemmo: No, you know, I didn’t, and I was single at the time, so it was also an opportunity for me to connect with other people. And so that that became an exciting part of it. I really got along well. And I’m still good friends with, you know, a lot of those troupe members, original troupe members. And so that kind of was fun for me. That felt natural. We had good chemistry. An improv team needs to have good chemistry. Overall. It shouldn’t be one person standing out over another. So it’s kind of a nice ensemble of people.

Sharon Cline: You were, um, on on this troupe or in this troupe? Troupe? Yeah. And you, um, had been participating over and over, and then all of a sudden they asked you. We need a director. Would you do it?

Joe Lemmo: Well, no, the I was a part of it. And after a while, it kind of. It dissipated a bit. So we, uh, we took a break. I want to say it was maybe around. I don’t know the exact year, but maybe 2015 or 16 was. We actually didn’t have a troop for a short amount of time. Um, we had a guest on the in one of our shows. His name was Jay Star, and he was running a theater called the Basement Theater, which was an improv venue in Buckhead. They’re no longer they’re no longer there. But he had recruited me and asked me if I’d like to be a part of their team. And so I was performing in both places. And then when the troupe shut down for it was called the I think, improv Troupe before it, before it was Woodstock Arts improv Troupe. Um, I was there, so I was still kind of getting good time as an improviser. And then I came back and they had they had offered me, you know, the position if I wanted to be the director. Did you.

Sharon Cline: Question that at all or were you like.

Joe Lemmo: Yes. No I didn’t. I did have some parameters. I you know, I had certain, um, you know, a certain way that I wanted to do it, you know, different aspects of it. And they’re they’re great over there. Um, Christopher Christopher Boston, who’s the director? Um, he actually was a part of the team that hired helped to hire him. So. And I got to know him really well. So they were very open to my suggestions, and they said, yep, that sounds good. So we did it.

Sharon Cline: I’m trying to imagine how much growth you’ve had with improv from the very beginning, from the first time until now. What have you noticed over over the years? Um, I don’t know. Is it like an improv muscle? You know, that you practice and you get good at.

Joe Lemmo: Yeah, it is. And I’ll tell you the the interesting thing about thing about improv is if you talk to someone who’s been in it for ten, 15, 20, 30, 40 years, you you still have a lot to learn, you know, from it. So it’s kind of a constant, uh, educational experience for you. And I think as you, for me, as I’ve grown like I wasn’t a father, I father. I wasn’t a husband, you know. And you look at a lot of comedians, and they’re their bits will change depending on the the stage of life that they’re in because you have new material, you know, because ultimately, as an improviser, you’re trying to be a character that is recognizable to the audience. Um, and then, you know, through that process, something unusual tends to happen when you’re making things up. So I think it’s allowed me to play different characters stronger and to understand them, you know better because I’m living them now.

Sharon Cline: Are they all kind of floating around in your head?

Joe Lemmo: Yeah. They do. You know, I sometimes when I’m driving, I’ll practice my accents. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. So I don’t have, um. You know, there’s certain go to, you know, accents that I think are a little bit easier to to play with. Um, but, you know, sometimes you just turn into something else, you know, and it’s, you know, you learn that I just start playing around with my voice and lowering it or hiring, you know, hey, what’s going on? Because, you know, you can have a different character that you know, is inspired by the, you know, the pitch of your voice. So.

Sharon Cline: So when I was doing theater in high school, I know I took improv classes and I, I’ve never been comfortable with it. You have to think so quickly in in my mind, that’s what it was like 100 years ago when I was in high school. Is it is it is it that you are? I know that you have to listen to each other a lot in order to be because you’re really collaborative, right? So how do you how does your brain keep up with it? That is my biggest hang up with with it for me. Why? I would never probably do it unless forced.

Joe Lemmo: Right? Well, I think you’re right. When you said, listen, I think it’s, um, the term should really be, uh. We don’t think quickly, we listen quickly, and, uh, because it is, it’s primarily listening. And I think what’s been really beautiful for me is I have been able to understand the how the applications and skills in Improvization are actually life lifelong skills. What do you mean? Well, for example, I learned several years ago that as an improviser, your goal really is to make your scene partner look good. I mean, that’s that’s part of a big part of it. So when we’re making things up on the spot, if my scene partner has just said something, I want to show them that I value what they’ve said, and I’m going to build on what they’ve said or help justify what they’ve said. So they think to themselves, oh, that was a good choice, you know. And then I’m hoping they’re going to reciprocate that. So when I’m performing with other people on stage, I’m really listening to what they’re saying so I can build off of it, show them I’m listening and build it. And then if you think about just an average relationship, you know, most people in conversations are already thinking about what they want to say when they’re listening to somebody. You can’t you can’t do that in improv. You can’t think about what you want to say next. You might miss a key detail. So that’s a huge part. Trust. I mean, improv, You have to trust your scene partners. You have to be willing to take risks. You have to share emotion and be clear on how you feel about what’s happening. Because if you don’t, then it’s hard to play off of that character. So those I have found have been just, you know, kind of like really good relationship things. You know, as a consequence, my wife knows that. So she and I, we talk about it and.

Sharon Cline: It’s a, it’s a marriage skill.

Joe Lemmo: Yes it is. And uh, and it’s good because it makes me think about it, you know, um, also like eye contact, you know, when you’re in a scene, you can’t you need to be checking in with your scene partner. You can’t do things. You have to pay attention to body language, all those things. So I’ve learned a lot about that through the years, and I’m still learning. But those are really nice kind of, um, lessons that you can apply, you know, to, to the rest of your life.

Sharon Cline: Do you have, um, a particular improv scene that you did that was just like you high fived yourself when it was it was over. It was so great. You were just like, so happy. And you think about it sometimes.

Joe Lemmo: Um, you know that that’s a tough one. I mean, I do have, um, one that kind of the first thing that comes to my mind is actually a scene where we don’t you don’t use any words. It’s all gibberish. It’s called murder mystery. So someone has, uh, you know, been killed somewhere with something. And basically, it’s like charades. You’re trying to get the other person to guess who it was, where it was, and what the weapon was. And it’s all gibberish. So you’re trying to look at body language, and, um, I was not getting what the other person was doing, and I was getting very frustrated, and the audience was recognizing that. And it was a big crowd. So it was a lot of energy, and it was just some huge laughs that just I’ll never forget. I mean, that’s the the beauty of improv is you go there and sometimes the audience is, you know, 30 people, sometimes it’s 130 people and it’s different. But every show is unique. And hearing that audience laugh is, you know, is really fun.

Sharon Cline: It must be so satisfying.

Joe Lemmo: Yes. Yeah. It is. And, um, I think working and I’ve learned to, uh, you know, I used to sometimes I walk away from a show, and I and my wife was there, and I’d say, man, that was not a good show. And she goes, are you kidding me? That show was great, you know? And I realized that an improv troupe or an ensemble is not it’s not, um, you know, valued on just one person. So you. I felt like maybe my choices weren’t that funny or I didn’t feel good. But yet, if other people were doing really well, then as, as a whole, we have given our audience a great show. So it’s not individualized. It’s more of a team effort.

Sharon Cline: So given that you had a natural propensity to do well in improv, do you find that a lot of your students there are some that just get it that just Don’t need to be taught quite as much.

Joe Lemmo: Yes. You know, and I’ve had that’s been a lot of fun, you know, working with Christine and so many people. You know, I’ve worked with just people of different backgrounds and age levels. You know, like you were saying, the youngest I’ve worked with is the youth. We have a youth troop, our youth class that we have, and we have a teen class. And then adults, you know, and adults, we could have a class where there’s a 19 year old and there’s a 65 year old. Um, you know, I work with some people in their 70s and it’s just it’s fun to see, you know, gaps kind of narrowed in these, all these connections to people of different age levels. And, you know, I had a teacher or a student who was a neonatal brain surgeon and artist. What? And she’s in my class and she’s super. She was so smart. So, you know, funny, witty. Um, and I was just it was an honor to, you know, you to be working with someone like that.

Sharon Cline: Isn’t it interesting to think that there are people every day we pass by and had no idea they may have this dream, right? A neonatal surgeon to want to do improv? It’s just kind of. I love that she did it because so many people don’t really follow some of those impulses. Right.

Joe Lemmo: Yeah. And so, um, it’s fun working with different people like that. Um, and, you know, it’s you you can kind of tell pretty early on if, um, if somebody is going to be successful with it and most students, they either love it or and they want to do it again or they just think, yeah, that was that was cool. I think I’m good. Yeah, that was fun. I did it, but I’m okay. And there’s some that are just, oh, they can’t get enough of it. Like they want to know when the next class is going to be. How do they get it? Can I be a part of the troop, you know, um, and so that’s fun. It’s fun to see them, you know, get that bug because I obviously I have it it’s it’s really become a second career for me. It’s now a profession. You know, I get paid and I do freelance work and I have other shows. So it’s kind of a it’s my fun time and a hobby and a profession kind of all mixed into one.

Sharon Cline: It’s kind of the dream.

Joe Lemmo: It. Well it is. I’m very fortunate as an educator, you know, being an educator for so long. And I have a master’s and a specialist degree. So I’ve kind of put myself in a good position financially to be the primary breadwinner, you know, in the house. Um, and that’s nice. And then to be able to do improv, but then to, to get paid for it as well is definitely it’s a support. It’s a great support to the family.

Sharon Cline: Do you find that the because I’m trying to picture the kids like the youth group. Are they just adorable? Just imagine it.

Joe Lemmo: They you know, they are. They have a lot of energy.

Sharon Cline: And that says a lot right there.

Joe Lemmo: Yeah, it’s sometimes it’s, you know, a lot of their scenes. It’s funny the, the youth, their scenes are like just really extreme, you know, it’s it’s over the top. Yeah. Um, and then the teens, you know, you get that angst. There’s like this. They’re really fun. The teens are fun to work with, too. And, um, because a lot of them don’t, they didn’t necessarily fit in in other places. They aren’t necessarily a jock. Um, and they, they, you know, they do weird stuff, like improvisers were weird. You know, I mean, we’re regular people, but we as an adult, I play like a child with other adults, and we’re playing like children and playing make believe. You know, so you have to be you have to be silly and you have to be okay with that. And I think the teens, when they get to experience that, it’s special for them because they’re like, okay, there’s other people like me, you know, this is all right. I do things, I’m kind of weird, and I might not be well received in my classroom. Maybe, you know, um, but this is kind of like a safe. It becomes a safe place, which is really special. Like, a lot of improv groups become close. And that’s really fun to kind of be a part of, you know, being.

Sharon Cline: Yeah. You said you you have to trust each other. So it’s like the ultimate trust exercise, I guess.

Joe Lemmo: Yeah. It is. Yeah. And and you know, you can tell, like, if people are trying to be funny, it’s, uh, it doesn’t work. And it’s really. It’s very awkward. Like, that’s a big thing that I have had to learn through improv. Like, if you’re purposely trying to be funny at the expense of your scene partner or jokey or puns like, there’s no, there’s no place for that, really, in improv. It’s supposed to be raw. It’s supposed to be in the moment, and you aren’t pre-planning things. Inevitably, when you do that without a script. Something unusual always happens. And then you embrace. You embrace that thing. And you, you say, if this is true, what else could be true about this character or this situation? So it’s really there are no mistakes. We have a beautiful saying in improv there are no mistakes, only gifts. And so you you don’t see it as a mistake. Oh, you mispronounced, you know, chauffeur. You wanted to say chauffeur, but you said gofer. Like you said, gofer. You know. And, um, you know. Yeah, I’m my gofer. Should be. I mean, my chauffeur. Your gopher? Okay, so your gopher. So we would play off of that, you know, in a in a positive way to make it a part of the scene basically.

Sharon Cline: Do you find, since you do this so often, that there are days that are better than others for you as a performer?

Joe Lemmo: Yes, definitely. A lot of times, you know, you you know, most of our shows are Friday nights, you know, so I’ve taught, I teach, I teach second, I teach second grade. So, you know, I work. Yeah, I’ve, I’ve taught fourth grade, fifth grade, seventh grade. And now I’m currently with second grade. So, you know, I’m, I’m with the kids all day long. It’s it’s a lot of energy. It’s a lot of emotion. And and I am, you know, pretty drained. But as an improviser you kick into a you have a new gear and I host the shows, you know, so I’m setting up the games. Well, you saw that when you were there. I did. So that’s another level of energy that you have to bring to the, the show. And that’s, that’s sometimes what I have to deal with is I’m both the host and an improviser. So I kind of have to change gears. I have to be in a scene and be a character, and then I need to be a host and and make the audience feel welcome and understanding of what’s going on. So it’s it’s kind of like, um, you know, it’s sometimes it’s tough at that at the on a Friday night to, to find the energy. But I do and then I crash, you.

Sharon Cline: Know, when.

Joe Lemmo: I get.

Sharon Cline: Home. When you were working with the other troupe, the one that was in Buckhead, did you find that the energy was different because there were different people?

Joe Lemmo: Well, definitely. It was a city club atmosphere. We had well, you know, it was like more we had two shows. There were two shows on the weekends and 8:00 and a 10:00 show. So the 8:00 show was usually family friendly, you know? And so there were sometimes kids at the show and families. And then the 10:00 show was, you know, you didn’t know.

Sharon Cline: What you’re getting.

Joe Lemmo: You’re in Buckhead and it’s 10:00. And, you know, it also was a small venue. It only sat about 55. Yeah, but.

Sharon Cline: They want to be entertained, don’t they?

Joe Lemmo: Yes. Yeah. So it’s much more intimate. The stage was tiny and the audience, and it was really fun. I loved it, actually. It was like I was getting out of, you know, Woodstock. And I mean, I love it here, but I was going into the city and I was performing, um, and at first we didn’t get paid, but then we were getting paid. So this is wow, this is pretty cool. You know, it wasn’t much money, but, um, it was fun to get away, you know? But, um, but I love our shows at Woodstock Arts because they are family oriented. I mean, you know, we’re clean comedy. And so we have a lot of regulars that are families. And it’s it’s fun to see them, to be able to come together on a Friday night to to a wholesome, you know, a comedic performance. And so, um, we appreciate being able to deliver that to those audiences.

Sharon Cline: I love that families go to to something, um, art worthy, you know, here in downtown Woodstock, it’s not just paintings and things or things on the green, but it’s actual theater. But it’s not a play either, so.

Joe Lemmo: Well, a lot of times they say that improv is a nice window into the theater. So if you if you’re out there and you’re like, I’ve never gone to a play and never gone to a musical, I don’t know, would I get it or is there anything I really like? Um, we like to invite people to come check out an improv show because it’s interactive and it’s it’s segmented and we try to make it funny. Um, so it’s a bit more relaxed. And I think it’s a nice introduction for some people to a theater because, I mean, that’s what we’re doing. We just don’t have a script, basically.

Sharon Cline: Well, if you’re just joining us, I’m interviewing Joe Lemmo. He is the director of the Woodstock Arts improv troupe. Um, I wanted to ask you, where do you find that? Your. I know you had said that your improv skills kind of can be in other parts of life, but are you finding that people are coming to improv because they want to apply those skills to other parts of their own lives?

Joe Lemmo: Yes. Um, there are some actually some people in sales have gone. They’ve I’ve had some people who have learned, they’ve been told, you know, hey, take an improv class. It might help you with sales because it’s all about communicating with others. Um, so I have found that that is one area. We had I had a lady who English was her second language, and she took the class. She actually took a workshop. And she found that the, the intensity of the on the, the, in the spot or on the spot in the moment responses really challenged her ability to understand her. So it really helped her work on her language.

Sharon Cline: Um, that is brave.

Joe Lemmo: Conversationally, yeah. And then she decided to take the class. She took a class after that, so she pursued it, and then she encouraged somebody else who also was taking the class for the same reason. So I think if it’s an English language learner, improv can be a great way to, you know, expose yourself to conversational moments and interacting with different types of people. So a lot of people have done that. Some people are actors, you know, they’re aspiring actors. Currently in one of my classes in my class, there’s a comedian, a stand up comedian, and a lot of times, if you look at some of the great comedians out there, they have spent some time in improv in Chicago. It’s a big place. Chicago and LA are huge meccas for improv, so Second City, you know, a lot of talent comes from there. So we have aspiring people and we have people who are like, bucket list, you know, they’re like, it scares me. The idea of doing something like this is something I would never do. So here I am. And some of them, some haven’t made it. After a couple of classes, they just couldn’t do it. It was too intense. But the fact that.

Sharon Cline: They were brave enough to try. Know that they’re afraid of doing it, but then still do it, I love that.

Joe Lemmo: Yeah. And we try to, you know, a lot of times at the beginning of a class, we, we talk about why we’re there, you know, what brought you here. And we learn a lot about each other and we try to take care of each other. You know, do those kind of check ins, like if somebody, if someone. So if somebody says, yeah, this is something I’ve never done before, I’m not comfortable. Then we try to embrace that and we try not to, you know, be over the top with someone like that, be a little bit more compassionate. Um, and I think, you know, in life in general, in all of our working environment, you know, if people were a little bit more aware of that or even willing to share, you know, that real honest, you know, feedback, we might be a little bit kinder to other people, you know, in realizing that.

Sharon Cline: When you walk around downtown Woodstock, do you just see people, you know, everywhere?

Joe Lemmo: You know, I used to, um, I used to when I was teaching in Town Lake, the town Lake area, um, for 18 years. I was in there. I would get a lot of the Mister limo, you know, there would be these mister limo sightings. And actually, my wife, um, it was fun. We. One of our first dates that we went on, we went to a movie, and then we came down to downtown Woodstock and there was something going on where the the big event space is the amphitheater. There was something going on there. So we were walking and it was almost like, um, like Groundhog Day, like I had planted all these people because people were coming up to me and. Oh, Mr.. And I actually had been named teacher of the year.

Sharon Cline: Oh my God, congratulations.

Joe Lemmo: Thank you. The previous thing the previous year. So then someone was like, teacher, you know, that was so awesome. Teacher. And I’m like, wow, this is all good stuff right here.

Sharon Cline: Um, was your was your wife like, oh.

Joe Lemmo: Yeah, she was she was really impressed. She was like, wow. You know, a lot of people.

Sharon Cline: Um, celebrity.

Joe Lemmo: So it is fun. You know, it’s it’s fun to, uh, to meet different people. I’ve definitely have, uh, through the years, met a lot of different people. And, um, it’s fun for me to interact with people outside of the education world because, you know, educators, we, uh, sometimes the job isn’t necessarily deemed cool, and you’re not meeting different people. You know, you’re with, you know, I love the love the people I work with. They’re just they’re fantastic. Um, but, you know, out in the. It’s like the real world, like, right now. Like you offered me, uh, would you like some water or tea? And I’m like, yeah, I’ll take the tea. And then I don’t even know what you said. You what kind of tea?

Sharon Cline: What kind of very something, something. There’s no caffeine in it. I’m like.

Joe Lemmo: I’m gonna take it. You know, most people are like, no, don’t worry about. Yeah, I’m gonna take what else you got? You got snacks or you guys got hats or shirts? What can I.

Sharon Cline: Get in here?

Joe Lemmo: Um, that kind of stuff. Um, I’m kind of like. So for me, the improv world has been exciting because it’s it’s been a, I don’t know, I feel like it’s cool, like, to be an entertainer. I get to call myself a comedian, an improviser, uh, performing shows. It’s been really special. And then the work with the people, other people that I bring with me on stage who are really fun, just funny individuals, just just good people. A lot of improvisers are very talented. So it’s been fun to have that new network of people and then to learn, you know, and, and to meet other people in downtown. So it’s really neat to to bump into people, you know, walking around.

Sharon Cline: In that environment where you’re having to employ bravery oftentimes and to think on your feet and to be so connected with other people. Are you finding that there are very similar themes to what we all want and as like humans? Do you know what I mean?

Joe Lemmo: Yeah, I think it probably goes back to, uh, definitely being heard, I think is a huge thing. Um, you know, just that recognition. We have an exercise in improv. It’s called, um, uh, so I’ll. Okay. So I’ll so basically what I would do is I would say, um, you know, it’s up to you. If you were my scene partner, I would say, uh, it’s raining outside, and then you would just repeat what I’d said, and you said, oh, what you’re saying is it’s raining outside, so I’ll. And then you would say something else like bring, I’ll bring an umbrella. And then what I would say is what you’re saying is you’ll bring an umbrella. So I’ll bring some extra rain boots, and then we just keep repeating what the other person had said. What you’re saying is you’d bring rain boots. So I and it’s kind of like an exercise we do to remind ourselves to show the other person that we have heard them. So I think I think we all have an innate nature, you know, of of yearning, of recognition and validation. Um, I think that’s, that’s that’s probably a big word to maybe even goes deeper than being heard actually being validated. Um, those are big things. As an improviser, you have to emote.

Joe Lemmo: And, um, if you if I am angry with you as a scene partner, I want you to be affected by that. I don’t want you to just brush it off. I want to I want to know, how does that make you feel? You know what I mean. Are you angry that I’m angry, or are you happy that I’m angry? Which would be fun, you know. Oh. You’re angry. Oh. That’s great. I’ve been waiting for you. Finally. And then, you know, when you say something like that, you’re gifting me something about the character and our relationship. So I think those are big parts of, um, you know, that validation is big. And even just having fun, like, you know, I think people like to have fun and and feel like they can be themselves. That’s what we try to teach. We try to treat improvisers and just be yourself. Like, be honest, and you’re going to be received and we’re going to work together and build something in the moment together. I think it’s just like every relationship, any working environment, um, you know, all of that is just, you know, validation, listening, uh, trust, honesty. So it’s it’s a fun hobby, you know, to be a part of.

Sharon Cline: I think this show is sort of like a very small microcosm of that whole theme of being able to say, you know, tell me your story. What’s it like to walk in your shoes for a little bit or what have you learned? I actually wanted to wanted to ask you also, um, you obviously have been in, um, improv for a long, long time now. So what would you have wished you had known before you got started that, you know, now about improv? Is there anything that surprised surprises you?

Joe Lemmo: Um, I think one of the big things was that I learned later on was about the scene partner. You know, um, you know, I used to think that as an improviser, you have this. There’s this stress of having to be funny, you know? And I think, oh, man, I need to make sure when I step out on that audience that I am as funny as I can be. And that’s not really what it’s about. It’s not. It’s about a connection building a scene with somebody. The other thing, too, is early on in my career, I was really affected by the size of the audience. And, you know, as I said at the Basement theater, when I performed there, it was very small. So it was, you know, and it was dark and small. So if you had 30 people, it felt it still felt pretty full, you know. But at Woodstock Arts, we have a big, a big, beautiful theater and a huge stage. So sometimes with a smaller audience, it’s you have these insecure feelings of, oh, people are going to look around and be like, there’s nobody here, you know? And my wife, um, as usual, uh, shared some enlightening information with me. And she said, you know, it doesn’t matter how big the audience is, if you put on a good show, they’re going to leave wondering why more people weren’t there, you know? So she it just and that was a really good piece of advice that she gave me.

Joe Lemmo: And so now, um, it is there’s a different energy when you have a smaller crowd. But I think all those years I was disappointed at the end of a show, I didn’t even think about necessarily how good the show was. I was thinking about, oh, there weren’t enough people like, I want to bring people in. I want to feel like it’s a cool experience. Um, you know, and then the other thing that I used to worry about was the who the audience was. I was really affected by that. Um, you know, like I said, a lot of our shows are more family oriented. So and sometimes I’m like, well, where are the 20 year olds? 30 year olds? Are they are we not cool enough? You know what I mean for them. But a lot of times there’s there’s language at other shows, you know, that I think some people like to go to. But, um, but I’ve been content with, with our audience. So I think those are probably the, the biggest takeaways for me if I, you know, if I would have known. But it’s still been it’s been a growing experience, learning experience with my own children. It’s been a lot of fun. You know, I have an eight year old and a five year old and it’s we do lots of improv games and exercises. They must.

Sharon Cline: Love it. I mean, you must be really I mean, obviously not every minute, but to be able to play with your kids in a different way than, like, board games, you know.

Joe Lemmo: Yeah. Well, and my wife is, uh, she’s, um, she’s a has her own music studio. She’s, uh, she teaches music and movement, uh, to children ages 0 to 7. And their parents, they do together. And she also is was a pit instructor for a marching band, and she works for an indoor drumline, and she was an elementary music teacher. And she plays the piano. And so we, you know, there’s all this music, we have this fun, um, you know, chemistry that I didn’t even realize was going to happen in our relationship. And that’s where theater has been. She’s a big theater fan, too, you know, she loves wicked. And I mean, she’s been a big theater person. So it was really fun to see how that kind of grew, how God kind of put that in my life and then kind of put me in the right position, you know, to meet her. So it’s been really cool. And yeah, the kids, we always joke. We’re like, sometimes we wish we weren’t as fun with our kids. Like our kids, they always want to do stuff together. You know? We’re like, just go play, go play. No. Can we do character? Can we do this? No. Just play by yourself for a little bit, okay. No, but they’re really they’re really cute. And they like to kind of jump in and and do improv games, you know, at home as well.

Sharon Cline: I don’t play like that. Like I don’t as an adult. I just, I think I don’t ever really let myself kind of just really just play and and I’m realizing, just listening to you how how kind of sad that makes me feel. I wish I did more or had permission to do more. I guess I don’t know if permission isn’t even an important word, but for some reason that I feel like I need to throw that in there. Like someone needs to give it to me. You know, as if my as if I can’t give it to myself.

Joe Lemmo: Well, and also there’s, you know, um, you know, there’s you need to in life, you need to have serious. We have serious moments. And, you know, it can’t all be, you know, fun and games. And, you know, a lot of people know that one person, everything’s a joke, you know, so it’s hard to have a it’s hard to have a conversation with them. And um, and that can be dangerous. So you have to have balance, you know. So I think sometimes when I’m at an event and then someone finds out you’re, you know, you do comedy, it’s almost like they’re like, okay, do something funny.

Sharon Cline: What do you got?

Joe Lemmo: What do you got?

Sharon Cline: Turn it on right now. I mean.

Joe Lemmo: You know, and it’s, you know, in that case, it’s more about just being a good listener and having good conversation. But, um, you know, it’s, uh, so it’s you just you have to balance as well. And I think and I think that’s that’s what, what excites people when they take a class is they feel like, wow, this is I just get to play. You know? And that’s all that’s really like what it is. It’s just adult play. And, um, you know, there’s lots of great in Atlanta, you know, dad’s garage, um, whole world theater, improv. Yeah, there’s there’s just such a great improv scene and it’s fun for us to be outside, you know, in the suburbs and, and some people, when they find out about where we are, they’re like, oh, I didn’t know there was improv. You know, I thought I had to go into the city, you know, to see it. Um, so I think I see people all over the place like they’re excited about that. And they. And I think that’s what what brings them back is like, wow, that was something different. You know, I just, um, I haven’t let loose like that in a while, you know, because everything is so serious and, you know, so, um, I think that’s that’s fun witnessing that, being a being a witness to that, you know, each time.

Sharon Cline: What would you want people to know about improv that maybe the average person doesn’t know? Like someone who’s listening that I don’t know, maybe would be encouraged to come to come see it. What would they need to know?

Joe Lemmo: Uh, I think, you know, there is, um, well, if somebody wanted to just some people, it amazes me that some people don’t still don’t know what improv is. And and really just to divine.

Sharon Cline: The just to define it anyway. Yeah.

Joe Lemmo: That’s usually that’s usually what we say. It’s kind of like whose line is it anyway? I mean, that’s the type of improv that we perform at Woodstock Arts is um, basically we take suggestions from the audience and we create characters and scenes based on those suggestions. Um, so it’s really theater without the script. So every I would want them to know that every show is different, you know, and there are different types of performers. You know, our troupe has about 15, 15 to 16 people in our troupe, and we usually have about six on stage, you know, for a show. So you’ll you’ll see a variety. Um, so I would tell them that, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s different every time. So that’s one thing that’s kind of fun about it. If someone was thinking about taking a class, I would tell them that, you know, there are there are bad teachers out there, you know, and there are some bad. I mean, some people have had bad experiences, unfortunately. Um, but I think that I would, you know, I would encourage people to, you know, if you’re worried about not being able to think quickly or you’re worried about what other people are going to think if you’re going to be funny. Um, that’s, you know, all the pressure should be off. You know, you get in there and you know, everyone else is in the same boat as you are. And most teachers, I think, are very encouraging.

Sharon Cline: And they were when we were when I was watching Christine’s performance. Well, well.

Joe Lemmo: That’s what’s nice for me is I’m being an educator. So, you know, not all improv teachers and coaches are necessarily also, you know, educators. And I’ve enjoyed that because we because we didn’t always have classes, you know, at the theater. And then I started those and we’ve developed several levels now. So we have a youth and a teen and level one, level two, level three. And so my education background and teaching background kind of supports that. So now I have this love of improv and I’m learning about Improvization. And and now I feel more comfortable teaching it, you know, especially for the kids too. And not not a lot of people can can work with the younger kids. You know.

Sharon Cline: That’s with the energy level.

Joe Lemmo: Yes. Yeah. And patience and you know, all that you have to you kind of have to have that, that background. So um, that’s what I would do. You know, I would recommend they just encourage them to check it out. We have shows, you know, on Woodstock. It’s interesting because we are we’re called wit um, we are the Woodstock Arts improv troupe. So we basically, you know, I’m the director of our in-house, you know, troupe. We’re not like, an outside group that comes in and performs at Woodstock Arts. And I think some people don’t I don’t know some people don’t.

Sharon Cline: Know that you’re the you’re the resident.

Joe Lemmo: Ones. Yeah, we’re the resident comedians. Yeah. You know, there. And we perform once a month. Um, we have workshops, you know, a lot of times in the summer as well. So. But I would encourage people to go, you know, go down to dad’s garage, go to whole world. I mean, there’s really a lot of talented performers, you know, out there. So I think it’d be a fun thing for date night for, you know, family night. Girls night out, guys night out. Um, you know, I think there’s really not a bad reason to go to an improv show.

Sharon Cline: Do you find that you use your improv skills while you’re teaching?

Joe Lemmo: Yes, I do. Uh, and with the second graders, sometimes it causes more.

Sharon Cline: No, no more of a.

Joe Lemmo: Yeah, it’s, uh, you you break into characters, and then all of a sudden they get all riled up. I remember this one. It was probably one of my maybe first or second day working with the second graders. And this kid drew a picture of a portal, you know, on his paper. And then I pretended to jump into that portal, and I was walking all over the classroom and it’s. I joke that it’s it’s kind of my, um, it’s my space to work on characters as well. You know what I mean? It’s, um, because they’re they’re a fun audience. Well, they’re also honest.

Sharon Cline: If it doesn’t work out. Yeah, they’ll tell you. And we do.

Joe Lemmo: A lot of reading. I do a lot of read alouds. So, um, it comes into play with characters when you’re reading a good children’s book and there’s different characters. Um, it’s I really, you know, I’m invested in it. I commit, I.

Sharon Cline: Commit.

Joe Lemmo: Commit to the position. So I enjoy that, you know, using it. And as a dad as well with my kids, it’s a lot of fun to do that.

Sharon Cline: It’s a real positive energy. I’m just trying to, like, imagine you in a classroom, like playing around because that energy, it’s infectious and and it’s engaging. So, you know, if they’re not paying attention, they will pay attention to when you have like that play energy.

Joe Lemmo: Yes. Yeah. It but even that uh, I’ll tell you even that does expire. They get you know, it’s interesting because when I was younger and they, they wheeled in the TV and they had a good day.

Sharon Cline: Oh, yeah. It was the best day. Wow.

Joe Lemmo: Now it’s like there’s just there’s a lot to compete with. Um, you know, and I have a YouTube. I have a YouTube channel, uh, Joe comedy. And, um, I jokingly said, yeah, I’m excited. I’m up to about 324 subscribers, you know? Um, wow. I’m big time, you know? But, um, I kind of have a, you know, a variety of, uh, some performances that I’ve done, little clips from performances, just interactions, just silly, you know, silly things. And. But it takes a lot of time, you know, to do stuff like that. Um, but, you know, I’ve enjoyed doing that. And so it it I do feel like I provide good entertainment for them, but, um, it you know, you do, like I said, have to have that balance of, um, structure and seriousness. And sometimes it’s they are a tough crowd because they are used to, you know, being.

Sharon Cline: Entertaining.

Joe Lemmo: Constant entertainment.

Sharon Cline: So over the top, even more and more and more it seems, you know, um, yeah, whatever they’re seeing, it just seems like that was last year. Now there’s something bigger and better and it’s just hard to keep up, I imagine, for something that’s very organically done, it’s not like it’s produced, you know.

Joe Lemmo: But I think but even and even going back to the listening, like the other teachers that I work with, we just sometimes talk about, you know, we I have 22 kids in one class and then I switch and I have 24 in the other class. And, you know, kids have a lot they want to share. You know, they want to tell you stuff. And sometimes it’s not the right time. And, you know, trying to balance, showing them that you care, that you’re invested in what they’re saying, you know, but also balancing, you know, moving on and doing what you need to do is, is a lot of times a challenge. But I think a lot of my improv does help me, you know, with that. And a lot of these kids are just they’re they just want to be heard again. You know, they’re looking for that validation or so. Sometimes you don’t even need to do much comedy. Just show them that you are interested in what they’re saying. A lot of times, and I think that goes a long way as well.

Sharon Cline: Thank you for being an educator. My hat is off to you. I think I would be a terrible educator. Maybe for a minute I could do it. But like, long term, no. I have strengths in other places, but not that. And I always admired people who could, um, manage all of the different personality types that you and home environments that get brought into a classroom, you know, and to be able to, um, impact someone’s life. They’re so young now, but you don’t know what you’re creating, you know, for them in the future. And I just I appreciate that about.

Joe Lemmo: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. That is a tricky thing about the profession, you know, is there’s a tough, tough it’s hard to monetize, you know, day to day. Um, and.

Sharon Cline: I that’s a good way to.

Joe Lemmo: Put it. I have um, there’s really I’ve got some special, you know, relationships that I’ve built through the years. And one actually is around the holidays. Um, this one former student of mine who’s now a teacher, he teaches really high school. So sweet. And, um, his mom is a baker. And, um, when he was in my class, uh, this was, gosh, I think it was maybe my third or fourth year of teaching. So we’re talking 20 years ago, they brought me Gingersnaps. And the next year, then I didn’t have them in my class anymore. But the the office called me Mr. Lomo. I got a I got a delivery for you. Gingersnaps.

Sharon Cline: Stop it.

Joe Lemmo: The next year. Gingersnaps. Um. And this past year, I got ginger snaps and chocolate chip cookies. So, like, every single year, a kind note. We value you, and we’re so thankful. Um, you know, it’s like, that’s. Those are really exciting, you know, exciting moments as a teacher. So, um, it’s tough out there right now for teachers. So I appreciate you saying something. I give a shout out to all my teachers out there because it’s hard, you know, it’s hard. It’s it’s a hard job. But, you know, they put a lot of emotion into it and, um, you know, try to encourage each other. And we try to work together as a team, you know, other teachers. And so it is it’s a good profession. Um, you know, and I’m thankful that I got into it. Uh, it allowed me before I was married and had kids. It allowed me to have, you know, to have that sense of value, you know, because they look up to you so much. So, um, and but then, you know, when I got married and now I have children, you know, my teaching has changed.

Joe Lemmo: It’s changed me, you know, just like, as an improviser. So it’s a little bit different. I don’t go to as many basketball games and piano concerts. You know, I have my own family. I have my own children. So, um, you know, that’s kind of shifted a little bit, but it’s been fun. And, you know, I’ve had kids come to my shows, you know, which is nice. You know, that when I have students come to improv shows, I’m not like, oh, gosh. Okay. Hey, everybody. Uh, let’s give them the clean version. Clean, clean version. Tonight. Uh, I got some kids in kids in the audience, you know? So, um, that’s that’s been a nice kind of addition. Like to invite people and, like, teachers. Sometimes they’ll have a teachers night out and they come to an improv show, and it makes me feel good that I can, you know, I can share that with my colleagues, you know. So it’s kind of it’s been fun to see how the worlds have have collided in that way.

Sharon Cline: I went back to college in 2012, and I went to Kennesaw State University to finish my degree, and I hated school when I was younger. I hated everything about it. Um, and I was very stubborn and was like, why do I have to take this class? It’s ridiculous when I think about it now. But when I was an adult, I think I was 38, eight. When I went back to school, I loved it. I felt so engaged with everything. I appreciated every professor so much because they really put so much time and energy and effort into into encouraging us to learn. I just felt I could have been a student, you know, like a life. What is it called? Professional student. Yeah. Professional student forever because I just loved it. And, um, I mean, some subjects I was, you know, more inclined to do well, but I didn’t have an appreciation for it when I was younger. And I kind of feel like I, you know, did a disservice to these these teachers who were really trying to help me and to build my life on some skills. So, um, yeah, it’s just sad that I had to be an adult, but I’m glad at least I had a moment to where I could say thank you. Even one of my professors. So much younger than me too. So sweet. This this woman. And I was just like, you were like, my daughter’s age. And I just thank you for caring. You know, so much about us. And some of them I became friends with. Yeah, yeah, just as an appreciation of who they are and the effort that they’re making, I think it’s underrated. Yeah.

Joe Lemmo: Well it’s interesting, I, I have this reflection on, you know, this is my 25th year of teaching. I’m 47 years old. And I started going to school, you know, in kindergarten when I was around 5 or 6 years old. And I have not stopped since then. So I’m like over 41, about 41 years of my life? Every new school year I have been in school. So I’m interesting.

Sharon Cline: I professional student in some ways.

Joe Lemmo: Yeah, in some with some regards. Uh, it’s fun though, because now I’m like, I try to tell my students I’m from their future now because, like, I think about them in second grade and what it was like for me in second grade, you know, I think it’s good. It’s fun to reflect on that. And so they they are there and I’m where I am. And it’s like, uh, they’re it’s kind of a cool experience. But yeah, I think that’s what happens as we get older. We we realize we appreciate different things. And, you know, that’s it’s cool for us to be able to have those experiences and then share those with others.

Sharon Cline: Well, I have a obviously a very naturally curious mind that doesn’t chill. And when I had younger children before I was in college, you know, I was very focused on them. But getting out of the mom mode and just kind of seeing what, what’s important and on the horizon so that I can have a degree to be able to have a job outside of of being a mom. I just loved how much there was to learn. It just fit so well for me. But then again, I get to do something like this where I get to sit with you and ask you a lot of questions. Um, and I have one more for you, actually. Yes. Where do you see yourself in, like five years? Where would you like to see this troupe go?

Joe Lemmo: Five years? Well, um, I would say that, you know, the Woodstock arts has, you know, visions of expanding their theater. You know, we have different stages. So we we’re hoping to eventually have, like, a main stage and then like a black box theater and then and then also some kind of like a lounge, you know. So that’s, you know, that’s down, down the road. And so I think with regards to the Woodstock Arts improv troupe, um, I would kind of see us maybe, you know, 5 to 7 years, maybe having regular shows, you know, every weekend. Got it. Lots of opportunity and smaller audience. So we would have a smaller space. Um, we’d have regular shows I think I could see myself doing that. I joke, you know, six years, you know, at 25 years teaching now, 5 or 6 years, I could be retiring from the classroom, not retiring at all. Um, and, uh, I’m, you know, I’m excited to see where my education background and my improv background and skills might be able to, you know, lead me in a position of something, you know, that I could be of assistance to people like, you know, in the corporate world or, you know, just I think that would be a lot of fun. So I’m kind of excited. There’s a little bit of that unknown. Um, but I have a young I have young family, you know, so I’m kind of I’m kind of excited to see where where that takes me. And, um, you know, I don’t know. So I think that’s probably that’s where I would see it maybe performing a little bit more. And, um, you know, a bigger audience might be fun at some point, but.

Sharon Cline: Well, how could people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about what you do?

Joe Lemmo: Well, um, you know, we have classes at Woodstock Arts, so if you go to Woodstock Arts. Org, you can find information about events that, that we’re going to be a part of. We also have a Facebook and Instagram Woodstock we are with at Woodstock Arts. So you can find us on Instagram and Facebook. I have a YouTube channel, Joe Comedy. I think it’s like Joe Limbo comedy 71, 79 or something like that, I don’t know, it’s.

Sharon Cline: I’ll follow.

Joe Lemmo: You. Yeah, it’s on there. Uh, don’t expect greatness. Um, it is just kind of a medley of being a dad and a husband and a teacher and an improviser, kind of all mashed into one. So, yeah, we’d love to have you come out to a show. And, you know, our next show is February 20th, I believe it’s a Thursday. And, uh, that show will be at 730 at Woodstock Arts. And, yeah, we’d just reach out. If you want to learn more about improv, uh, just holler at me.

Sharon Cline: Well, Joe, thank you so much for coming to the studio on a Wednesday. Yes. Thank you. I really appreciate your being so, um, so generous with your words and really explaining the background of what improv does, not just for their the performers, but for the audience and then other ways that you can apply it to your life. I like that it’s something that you obviously seem like you’ll always have in your life to whether you’re teaching or not.

Joe Lemmo: Yes. Yeah, I appreciate it. And thanks for trusting me and going on on air with only a mild skimming of me on, uh.

Sharon Cline: Mild skimming of.

Joe Lemmo: Figuring out who I am. So appreciate that trust and, yeah, appreciate, um, you know, the invite, of course.

Sharon Cline: And thank you all for listening to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX. And again, this is Sharon Cline reminding you that with knowledge and understanding, we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day.

Shortcuts and Secrets: How to Work Smarter with Microsoft Tools

January 9, 2025 by angishields

Women in Motion

Shortcuts and Secrets: How to Work Smarter with Microsoft Tools

00:00 /

In this episode of Women in Motion, Lee Kantor interviews Janet Lienhard, founder of Virtual Instructor. Janet specializes in training and consulting for Microsoft 365 tools, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. She shares her extensive background in software training and her passion for helping clients improve efficiency through mastering these tools. The discussion covers common challenges users face, the importance of tailored training, and the impact of AI tools like ChatGPT on productivity. Janet also highlights her involvement with the WBEC-West community, emphasizing the value of support and networking among women-owned businesses.

Janet Lienhard is an expert in optimizing Microsoft 365 tools and integrating AI solutions to enhance productivity and streamline administrative tasks. With extensive experience working across a wide range of industries—such as corporate, legal, accounting, military, education, real estate, and hospitality – Janet specializes in providing tailored training and solutions to help professionals master Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and AI tools like Microsoft Copilot.

As a creator of online courses, eBooks, and practical tips, Janet is dedicated to making complex software more accessible, allowing businesses and individuals to work more efficiently. Through customized learning experiences, including 60-second tips and personalized content, Janet helps users fully harness the power of technology to drive success and improve daily workflows.

Connect with Janet on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Music Provided by M PATH MUSIC

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios, it’s time for Women In Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women In Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women In Motion, we have Janet Lienhard with Virtual Instructor. Welcome.

Janet Lienhard: Hi. Nice to be here.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Virtual Instructor. How are you serving folks?

Janet Lienhard: I primarily train and do consulting for people that are using Microsoft 365, so that would be Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams. And there’s a lot of people out there using it and I help them to make sure they’re not spending hours on things that should only take a few minutes.

Lee Kantor: So, what’s your backstory? How did you get into this line of work?

Janet Lienhard: Well, I get my cane out. I have been doing software training for over 35 years, so I was actually one of the first ten certified WordPerfect instructors in the country, and that was back in the ’80s, so I have been doing this a long time and I love it. The thing that makes me the happiest is when I see that light bulb go off and someone says, “Oh, my goodness. Are you kidding me? I was spending an hour doing this, and now I can do it in, like, five minutes?” So, that’s what I love doing.

Lee Kantor: So, now, what drew you to become like a specialist in the Microsoft world?

Janet Lienhard: Because Microsoft started taking off when Windows started coming out, and I am a Microsoft action partner and I’ve been doing just so much work with Microsoft and with different clients, so kind of moved into that world. And there’s just so many things you can do with the Microsoft products, anything from beginning to advance programing things. So, it’s just amazing what you can do and how much time it can save people.

Lee Kantor: Well, I think it’s a good lesson for our listeners if they’re consulting or doing training like you’re doing, rather than be kind of a jack of all trades but to really hone in and find a niche and just become a super ninja expert on that one specific thing, there’s a lot of value in that. You create a lot more depth of knowledge, and so this deeper set of knowledge is really helpful to people who want this thing, and you picked a good one obviously with Microsoft.

Janet Lienhard: Yeah. And if you’re dealing with any major businesses, the majority are all using Microsoft, so you pretty much need to know how to use, if nothing else, Teams but Word and Excel and PowerPoint and Outlook. They all work so well together, so it’s amazing how much time you can save yourself if you really start to understand how to use these programs. And it’s not difficult, it’s just knowing a few little tricks here and there.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you find that most people, you know, they were given Microsoft or they started with Microsoft and they’re using their products, but they only have maybe a superficial knowledge of just the basics, and they’re really missing out by not having a deeper knowledge of more of the nuances of what it can do?

Janet Lienhard: Yes, absolutely. I would say the majority of the times when I work with people, I usually go in pretty much at a departmental level and work with the department and see what they’re doing. And when they show me what they’re doing and I see how long it’s taking them, then I show them how to do it properly. And typically, I can save people when they were doing something that took about an hour down to, like five, ten minutes just because they just didn’t know about the little tricks that you can do.

Lee Kantor: Do you mind sharing some of maybe the low hanging fruit, some of the stuff that you see right away that this is what most people kind of are missing out on?

Janet Lienhard: Oh, yeah. So, I’ll start talking about Teams first. Microsoft Teams, a lot of people are starting to use Teams, a lot of companies, and it can just save so much time. I don’t know about you all, but I am not a fan of email. It’s just hard to keep track of everything. So, if you can collaborate with people on Teams, it makes it much easier to locate the information that you’re sharing. They can actually work on the same files and collaborate together. And this could be people that are maybe your clients, because you can set up a separate area that you work directly with your clients and share things back and forth so it doesn’t get lost in email, things like that.

Janet Lienhard: The other thing that’s great is, if you are working with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, it saves versions. So, if you have different people working on it and then suddenly like, wait, we used to have this here. Well, it’s really easy to just go back and find a previous version and restore that. So, those are just a couple of different ways.

Janet Lienhard: When it comes to, say, Excel, when I ask them about pivot tables, you would be surprised how many people are just like, “Oh, my gosh. I don’t want to do pivot tables.” Pivot tables, you take a really large amount of data, maybe you have like a couple thousand rows and, I don’t know, maybe a hundred columns, and you need to analyze it really fast, well, with a pivot table, you can come up with the answer and different ways to view that data in just a matter of, like, probably under 60 seconds. So, that would be one, I’d say, just go on YouTube and watch something about pivot tables to get the basics. It’s amazing.

Janet Lienhard: And I specialize in shortcuts for people, so I actually have 60-seecond shortcuts that I’ve been doing for people for over a year. And they’re just little shortcuts but, boy, those little tiny things can save you a tremendous amount of time. Did that answer your question?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think people are hungry kind of for this type of information that they don’t know what they don’t know. So, they think they’re doing it in an efficient manner, and then you probably can see them in two seconds and go, “Oh, I can cut 45 minutes away from your day just by doing these six things.”

Janet Lienhard: Absolutely. Because most people are just using these tools for whatever project they’re working on, whatever job they’re doing, and they’re kind of just doing what they know all the time. And you can’t fault them. I mean, how do you know about all these other little tools if you’re not really doing this all the time? I’ve worked with so many different businesses and so many different industries and different projects, that over the years, I’ve learned and mastered a lot of these little shortcuts that I’m really happy to share with people. Because, again, one of my things is to help people to stop spending hours on things that should only take a few minutes.

Lee Kantor: Now, I would imagine in your world there’s always updates, there’s always better ways to do the thing, are you finding that you’re having to constantly be upskilling yourself in order to help your clients?

Janet Lienhard: Yes and no. There are more advanced features that are pretty cool that most people don’t really get into. So, depending on my clients then I get into those things and I love that sort of thing. So, in the whole Microsoft world, there’s like Power Apps and Power Automate and Power BI and things like that that are really fun, and that is constantly changing, especially with the whole AI, Copilot, ChatGPT, and all the other ones out there. So, that part, I am constantly learning new things and I love it.

Janet Lienhard: But I will tell you, you have Copilot, not everybody’s really using Copilot with their office products, but it’s just another AI or artificial intelligence tool like ChatGPT. And those tools can save you hours. And in some cases, some of the things I’m doing, it saves me weeks worth of time.

Lee Kantor: So, what’s an example of something that’s been transformed because of AI that you’re using?

Janet Lienhard: I am currently working on converting – so I have 60-second videos I said that I’ve done for over a year, so it’s a little free email subscription people do. Now, I’m turning them into books and to a reference membership site and doing all these other things. And just having it kind of pulling together the information that was in the videos, some of the other information I have, it’s helping me pull it together. I do rewrite things because I want to make sure it’s got my voice, there’s different tricks and stuff, but it has just saved me a tremendous amount of time combining this stuff together.

Janet Lienhard: Also doing research on different types of marketing type things and working with a client, this just happened not too long ago, they had a spreadsheet that was sent to them that had over 73,000 rows in it. And there was a certain cell in a certain column that if that cell was blank, they had to delete that row. And so, I showed them how to do it with Excel tools and we cleaned it up in about five minutes. And then, I said, let’s throw it into AI. So, we just used ChatGPT and I ask it to basically clean that up. I said, I have a spreadsheet I’m uploading, and I want anything that’s blank in this certain column to be removed, but I don’t want you to change the order. And in less than 60 seconds, it cleaned it up.

Lee Kantor: And that’s kind of the secret to AI, at least right now, is you have to be good at the prompts. That’s a lot of the skill is to ask it the right things and give it the right information to look at in order to really help you.

Janet Lienhard: Yes. For for example, what I’m doing right now is I’m creating a bunch of social media posts that I’m going to be writing. And I am not a social media content marketer type person. So, I used ChatGPT, and I said you are a social media content writer with 20 years experience and you specialize in writing posts that engage people into wanting to watch a video that’s associated with the post.

Janet Lienhard: And then, I told it the content of the post, and I said I would like it written for YouTube, for LinkedIn, and for Facebook, and I want the formats that those different platforms want, and I want it in my voice, and I want to make it so that if somebody is reading this post, they understand, they have a clue on what would be happening if they watched the video so they don’t waste their time. And it’s amazing what it’s come up with. Better than I would have written, let’s put it that way.

Lee Kantor: But that prompt was very detailed and specific. It wasn’t write me a Facebook post.

Janet Lienhard: Exactly, that was a long prompt. So, you really should write your post with a minimum of several hundred words. Ideally, the more you give it and the more background you give it, the better response you’re going to get. So, if you think about it, if you were going to hire a VA or an intern or a new employee and you wanted them to do something, the more information you give them, the better result you’re going to get.

Janet Lienhard: Now, you may have to go back and forth and say, “Hey, that was good, but can you work on this a little? And, no, I didn’t really want that, I meant this.” So, you do that with AI as well, whether it’s Copilot, ChatGPT, there’s some others, there’s Claude, Perplexity, Gemini. So, it’s how you interact with the AI.

Lee Kantor: And then, when you do it a lot, it kind of remembers, right, so you’re not having to create the wheel every single time?

Janet Lienhard: Yes. I was just doing something this morning before we started talking, and I said, now you know a lot about me, and you know what I do, and you know the voice and the way I like to speak, I would like to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it did a great job. Now, I do go back and tweak it a little bit.

Janet Lienhard: Something I also try to make sure if I’m doing anything that I might be publishing, I always like to say, please make sure that this is plagiarism free. Now, I always take it a step further and I will put it into Grammarly to make sure it’s plagiarism free as well. But that would be something that I would say you might want to put in your post.

Janet Lienhard: The other thing is you might want to make sure, especially if you’re using ChatGPT, they have a feature where you can have it turn on a temporary chat and so it doesn’t memorize what you’re doing. Otherwise, it is saving and it’s constantly learning from whatever interactions it is having with people. So, if it’s confidential, I usually say mask the information you’re putting in. So, if it’s about a company, then put – I always tell people I use Acme because I’m a Bugs Bunny, Roadrunner fan, so something so that it doesn’t really tell you who the company is.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re working with your clients, what is kind of that pain that they’re having right before they hire you? Or is your work just part of their onboarding when they have a new employee? How does your work come about?

Janet Lienhard: People usually engage with my services because they have something where they realize they’re not as efficient as they could be. So, it could be a department, it could be the entire company, they want to make sure that they’re all on the same page. So, there’s usually something where they’ve realized that they’re not using their tools as efficiently as they could. And so, I come in and take a look at specifically what they’re doing.

Janet Lienhard: Now, I can do the broad training, which is fine, but I always like to try to customize it to the clients, whatever their industry is, if they have any specific programs or projects that they’re working on, because people are going to learn more if you’re teaching them something that they can see how they apply it immediately.

Lee Kantor: But what are some of the symptoms they’re seeing that they realize, hey, maybe our people don’t know this as well as we think they know this?

Janet Lienhard: Sometimes they have things that are being turned in that have some mistakes and they have to keep sending it back and say can you kind of fix this. Other times they just realize, wow, this has taken a lot longer than we thought these things should take. There was a payroll department of one of the major universities and their accountants had different departments that they had to monitor on a monthly basis. And it was taking them about an hour for each department that they had to work with, and this is per month, and they had like 10 or 12 departments that they were working with.

Janet Lienhard: And so, we took a look at that because they thought this has taken an awful long time. So, I took a look at it and I showed them how to cut it down to about five minutes per department. So, usually they’re aware that there should be a faster way for whatever they’re working on.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have a niche within your niche when it comes to serving? Like are you good with accountants or CPAs? You mentioned Excel, I would imagine they lean on that more than the average person. Or are there certain industries, like tech industries, that you work with? Or is it kind of industry agnostic, because pretty much everybody’s using Microsoft somewhere?

Janet Lienhard: Yeah. It’s pretty much industry agnostic. Because I’ve been training for so long, I have worked with pretty much every industry out there. But I will say the majority of the training that I’m initially requested for is Excel. Excel is by far the biggest one because there’s so much to it and so many things, that if you don’t know about little formulas or little shortcuts and things like that, you can spend an awful lot of time doing things that really shouldn’t take any time at all.

Lee Kantor: If somebody wants to learn more about your practice, what’s the website?

Janet Lienhard: It’s virtualinstructor.com. And if you go over there and if you are interested in these little free 60-second videos, you can sign up and you’ll get an email daily with an under 60-second video of a tip, whether it’s an Excel, Word, PowerPoint. And we have them specifically for Mac users and for PC users because it’s different on the Mac, so don’t want to leave them out.

Lee Kantor: Now, why was it important for you to become part of the WBEC-West community?

Janet Lienhard: Many years ago, I wasn’t aware of this whole women-owned business, and I went to the small business development centers, and that’s where I learned about it. And I have been part of WBEC-West for now, I think about six or seven years, and it is wonderful because it not only introduces you to corporations through supplier diversity, but you also meet, I think there’s right now about 18,000 WBEs nationwide, so you meet other women-owned businesses.

Janet Lienhard: And there’s work out there, but you also meet other women that are experiencing the same things that you’re doing, whether it’s a frustration or you’ve got a question, you have somebody else to ask. And it’s just a great sisterhood. They’re extremely supportive, especially, I should say, WBEC-West is extremely supportive of the the women-owned businesses in their area. And they have a special program called Platinum Supplier, and it is a phenomenal program that helps you really understand your business, how to communicate about your business, and also how to interact with the supplier diversity and corporations.

Lee Kantor: And if somebody wants to learn more, is there a website or what’s the best way to connect?

Janet Lienhard: Just go to virtualinstructor.com, and you’ll see my contact information there, you’ll also see the information about the 60-second free videos. Or just contact me, it’s talk-with-janet.youcanbook.me. So, that’s another place you can get ahold of me.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Janet Lienhard: Thank you.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor, we’ll see you all next time on Women In Motion.